Full house: Dine-in reservations at French pastry chef Cedric Grolet's new Orchard store booked out for a month

Expect to wait for at least a month if you're intending to dine in at "superstar" pastry chef Cedric Grolet's newest store in Singapore and sample some of his delectable creations.

Reservations at the tea room, which also serves coffee, tea as well as champagne, are fully booked according to the store's online reservation system, reported Shin Min Daily News. Its website also appears to allow reservations only up to a month ahead.

Often lauded as the world's best pastry chef, Cedric's highly-anticipated patisserie at Como Orchard opened last Thursday (Sept 14) to much hype. The 38-year-old Frenchman has two stores in Paris and one in London. The Singapore shop is also his first Asian outpost.

Cedric, an award-winning chef with 8.4 million followers on Instagram, is known for his hyper-realistic fruit-like confections which have gone viral on social media.

@cedricgrolet Chocolatine / Pain au chocolat ? #cedricgrolet #chocolatine #painauchocolat ♬ Funny Song - Funny Song Studio & Sounds Reel

The 38-year-old is a bonafide social media superstar, with his TikTok videos regularly pulling in millions of views. Two of his most viral clips, one featuring Cedric making a droolsome tray of chocolate croissants, have been played over 50 million times.

Fans can enjoy Cedric's selection of signature cakes resembling fruits — such as the Lychee and Dragonfruit — at his Singapore store, with each exquisite treat priced at $26.

Other viennoiseries on the menu include his famous croissant ($8), pain au chocolate ($10), Pain Suisse ($16) and Parisian flan ($14).

The prices of his confections, which trend on the higher end, have evidently not deterred consumers, Shin Min Daily News reported. 

In fact, a check by the Chinese daily found that reservations at the 40-seater space are now fully booked for a month. 

Time Out Singapore had earlier reported, however, that for those who don't mind trying their luck, half of the seating area are available for walk-ins.

And even if you don't mind queuing to have your desserts packed to-go, be prepared to wait in line for about two hours on a weekend.

According to The Straits Times, there was a constant queue of about 80 people outside the store when doors first opened on Sept 14. Cedric himself had emerged to greet customers and apologised for the wait.

Shin Min reported that there were at least 30 customers in the queue on a Sunday (Sept 17) afternoon —  most of them tourists. The queue was divided into three lines — take-out, pre-order collection and dine-in reservations.

It was observed that those who had pre-ordered their treats from the website waited in line for about 15 minutes, while the process of queuing for take-aways took a total of about two hours. 

So remember to make your pre-orders way ahead of time, if you can.

When AsiaOne went online to their website on Tuesday (Sept 19), we found that the availability for pre-orders extend beyond the stipulated "48/72 hours lead time", with pick-ups only available for Oct 1 at the earliest.

According to Shin Min, walk-in customers who did not pre-order only have a success rate of "50 per cent" in getting their dessert of choice. Due to the painstaking process of making the signature cakes, each customer is also restricted to purchasing one of each flavour.

One customer, surnamed Dong, told Shin Min that he had pre-ordered some cakes online as a surprise for his mother - who's also a dessert-lover. Said the 20-year-old national serviceman: "We think that the price is acceptable. We believe that desserts are an added enjoyment to life and its value can't be measured by money."

Address: Level One Como Orchard, 28/30 Bideford Road
Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday 8.30am to 6pm

candicecai@asiaone.com