At 16, force of circumstances compelled Vanessa Klass-Singh to cut short her formal education and take up a job as a counter girl at the then Salt and Pepper Restaurant on Robb Street. Hers, she says, is no “sob story,” and there is no room for teary-eyed regret over having been unable to complete her studies. “I had to work and that was that,” she says.
These days, the articulate 39-year-old mother of two believes that in every sense the strides she has made in business have compensated for the sacrifices of all those years ago. She is the proprietrix of one of the most popular restaurants in the city, Hot and Spicy, situated at the corner of Third and Light streets, Alberttown. Above the restaurant she runs the Mirage Banqueting Hall and Conference Centre, a venture which she is seeking to grow to the extent that it matches her better-known restaurant in popularity.
