Henri Charpentier

a (well, no longer) recent addition to our shores from tokyo, charpentier serves up fancy, expensive desserts in this french-​styled japanese-​feeling café in dempsey. a small space filled with curtains for partitioning, booth and sofa seats, it’s the sort of place you expect a japanese housewife to sit with friends for tea.
it’s rather unique in a time where most places are styled casual or hipster (or both), with a fully suited up japanese man serving as maître d’ to the noisy boisterous group of us here for a part 2 after brunch. but the desserts are lovely, theatrical in a very impressionable sort of way, and tasty for all the fanfare.
I’m inclined to recommend you go straight for the showier desserts on the menu — the pastries and cakes are pretty standard (though a high standard, of course), and you won’t lose out on much skipping them.
you might, as I did, feel that the pour-​hot-​liquid-​to melt-​something format is a little overdone here in their desserts — but it doesn’t lessen the impact or photograph-​ability of the dishes (until you’ve seen it three times, at which point you get a little inured).
the desserts here aren’t cheap, but they make up for it by being very showy — and it’s well worth a day out.
tldr: get anything with a hot liquid poured on a cold dish. it’s pretty and tastes pretty decent.

Pro:
–romantic ambiance
–good for groups to catch up
–spacious
–free parking
Improvements:
–windows need cleaning
–feng shui not too good inside. The warm candle lights and afternoon sun especially heated the café.
–tea cup sets/​plating were too simple. Instead of plain white, teas could have been served in decorative sets.
–no wifi
–tea and coffee on bitter side. Could have more types of tea selection as they were all black tea based.
–no soy milk
–music didn’t fit ambiance (could use classical music instead of mexican fiesta)

We were on our way to House when we realized it was closed. Suddenly we saw 3 people shouting and waving at us «We’re open !» So this was how we discovered the existence of Henri Charpentier, a Japanese-​run pseudo-​French patisserie and café.
The location is nice — right next to lots of green, and the food is decent. But what lets this place down is the uneven service. The staff is very earnest, but unfortunately it was often hard to get their attention. It was also odd that my hubby’s food was not served at the same time as mine. I first got my soup, then after it was cleared, he got his appetizer. Then before he took two mouthfuls, his sandwich showed up, and was placed next to his appetizer. It was quite a while before my main showed up. So the pacing could have been a bit more even.
Food-​wise, the salmon special was pretty good. Cooked medium the way I like it, with a perfect crispy skin. We had a «chocolatine» cake for dessert, which was frankly quite disappointing. I could barely taste any chocolate, just a lot of hazelnut. They may have to rename this cake to shift people’s expectations ! Maybe it was a outlier, but based on the cake, this wouldn’t make my top 10 list of dessert places in Singapore…

This Japanese-​French dessert place is quite exceptional. Expecting nothing when the four of us randomly walk-​in this shocking pink barbie house, when we saw that the dessert came out with a cooking cart. We have ordered 2 Crêpe Suzette, which the orange wine is being cooked in front of us. The crêpe is so soft and the orange wine is perfect! We have also ordered a strawberry cake, which is very standard but without flaw, densely spongy and the cream is rich and elegant. However, the chestnut cake is a bit too sweet. Still not having enough, we’ve ordered the Dome, which is a chocolate sphere as what we thought. However, surprise came when the cooked wine is poured and melted the chocolate, a stawberry tart is revealed! The strawberry tart with frozen strawberry mousse remains intact after the chocolate sphere is melted. This is a mixture of sensation — hot chocolate & wine (which is quite strong), icy strawberry & strawberry mousse, crispy biscuit base. Highly recommended!