The Cheesecake Factory’s Cheesecakes Are Now In S’pore, But Are They Nice Or Not?

Now that the craze for baked cheese tarts (remember those?) is well and truly over, there’s another cheese-filled food item for Singaporeans to go gaga over: famous US cheesecake chain The Cheesecake Factory Bakery’s baked treats, which are available in Singapore for the first time at new cheesecake shop Beverly Hills Cheesecake. The kiosk’s opening on July 9 last week caused a mini stir, with customers thronging the takeaway stall to tapow cheesecakes.

Now, don’t confuse Beverly Hills Cheesecake as the official Singapore outlet for The Cheesecake Factory. It’s, in fact, a shop opened by Greens Food Products, a Singapore-based company who owns the master distribution rights to sell the US dessert brand’s premade cheesecakes in Singapore and Hong Kong. While they have the rights to sell the famous cheesecakes, they do not have the rights to use the famous brand’s name.

Which explains why, despite offering The Cheesecake Factory’s bakes, Beverly Hills Cheesecake operates under its own name (FYI: The Cheesecake Factory Bakery has its roots in Los Angeles, having opened there in 1972, and its first dine-in restaurant is located in Beverly Hills. Its restaurant arm now has over 200 outlets worldwide).

Greens Food Products’ director, Raja Selarka, 49, tells 8days.sg that he plans to eventually supply local major supermarkets like NTUC FairPrice with The Cheesecake Factory’s desserts.

The brand currently has a line in the US called The Cheesecake Factory At Home, where their popular treats such as whole and sliced cheesecakes are offered frozen or fresh in takeaway boxes at supermarkets.

In anticipation of the insane crowd at its July 9 opening day last week, Beverly Hills Cheesecake implemented a purchase-by-appointment system online for customers. This requires you to book in advance, via a form on Facebook, specific hourly time slots to buy your desired cheesecakes. Upon receiving your form, the shop then sends you a private message via Facebook Messenger to confirm your slot.

We tried booking an appointment slot for July 10, but received a polite Facebook DM from the shop two days later to say it had “stopped taking appointments”. But the message added: “You could come today between 10am till 10pm and buy the cakes.”

So yep, you can walk in anytime during the shop’s opening hours to buy cheesecakes, while stocks last.

“The appointment system didn’t work out because we didn’t have enough space in the shop to store our customers’ cheesecake orders,” explains Beverly Hills Cheesecake’s director Raja. “So now it’s first come first served.”

Unlike The Cheesecake Factory’s signature showy décor, Beverly Hills Cheesecake’s shop is simply decorated with elegant vases of flowers and a large signboard. It’s located near the Crumpler store at the basement of Raffles City Shopping Centre. It took over the space vacated by Spanish froyo chain Yolé.

According to the shop’s menu, there are a total of 13 best-selling cheesecake flavours from The Cheesecake Factory offered here. They’re sold by the slice or as 10-inch whole cakes (each cake feeds 10 pax).

But, depending on their popularity, some flavours may run out of stock faster than the others. Shop boss Raja tells us he had “a container” of desserts shipped over from the US, where the cakes are baked in a central facility and frozen, for Beverly Hills Cheesecake’s opening. “The frequency of restocking will depend on our customers’ demand,” he says.

Other than The Cheesecake Factory’s cheesecakes, Beverly Hills Cheesecake also has the brand’s other dessert offerings like a chocolate Fudge Cake ($9.90 per slice, $109 whole), a range of cupcakes with flavours such as Carrot Cake Cupcake ($3.80 each) and even breads including Wheat Mini Baguette ($5.70 each).

If you’re watching your calories, the cupcakes will also soon be available in bite-sized Mini versions (three for $6.90) for three flavours: Red Velvet, the chocolate-infused Blackout and Vanilla Bean, while cheesecake slices come in a smaller 97g portion ($5.90 a slice) in three flavours: Original, Belgian Chocolate and Raspberry Swirl (the regular slices are approximate 140g-170g each).

But, since The Cheesecake Factory is famous for its, well, cheesecakes, we try these six flavours and tell you which ones are worth splurging both your dough and calories on.

The Cheesecake Factory’s classic New York-style cheesecake — characterised by its dense, firm texture and graham cracker crust — is one of the better NY-style cheesecakes we’ve had. Its all-American recipe, developed by the Factory’s founder and erstwhile home baker Evelyn Overton, calls for cream cheese topped with a thin layer of sour cream, all plonked on a base of crushed graham cracker.

The slice we tried boasts a fab texture: smooth, decadently creamy and rich but not stodgy — it’s a bit dense yet fluffy. The flavour is also pretty spot-on: suitably creamy, cheesy with a tang from the sour cream to keep it from getting too jelak, though there’s a mild hint of what seems like faux vanilla essence that goes away after a few bites. Though we wish the graham cracker crust could be crisper and slightly thicker, it’s still pretty yummy and buttery, with a wheaty-ness to it. One slice feeds two.

This gorgeous number has chocolate chip-spiked cream cheese on a chocolate brownie, all topped with chocolate mousse and a whipped cream rosette. The chocolate used, from San Francisco-based chocolatier Ghirardelli, is luscious, though we found the entire slice of cake too sweet and jelak after a few bites. The brownie base is also too hard, even though we let the chilled cake thaw out at room temperature for almost three hours.

If you must have chocolate cheesecake, we say go for this Godiva version instead. It’s baked with chunks of milk chocolate from the Belgian chocolatier, and topped with choc mousse, choc ganache and a choc whipped cream rosette. Compared to the Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Cheesecake, this slice is moreish with its full-bodied choc flavour, and not too cloying. Its cream cheese texture is also somewhat airier than the other cheesecake flavours, so we scarfed down an entire slice in no time.

Strawberry-infused cream cheese, wild strawberry mousse and white chocolate shavings on a graham cracker crust come together for this slice. It’s not our favourite, though. The Barbie-pink strawberry tastes a tad artificial, like eating generic supermarket strawberry ice cream out of a tub, though its texture is just as good as the other flavours’. We foresee this being more of a hit with kids.

This chocolate graham cracker-crusted cheesecake has raspberries and white choc bits baked into its cream cheese filling, topped with a layer of whipped cream and white choc shavings. The berry flavour and earthy, fragrant crust is quite lovely, but we aren’t big fans of the excessive amount of whipped cream on this. Decent, but we’d go for the yummier picks like the Classic Cheesecake and Godiva Double Chocolate.

If you find the usual cheesecakes too jelak, go for this one, which has cream cheese spiked with tangy mangoes and key limes and a layer of mango mousse. The piquant fruits cut the heavy richness of the cream cheese nicely. The cheesecake’s vanilla coconut macaroon crust is light and fun to eat, too.

Beverly Hills Cheesecake’s cheesecakes don’t come cheap at almost $10 a slice (its owner Raja tells us the distribution rights fee is “expensive”). But from the six flavours we’ve tried, the cheesecakes are pretty delish, with a fab texture that’s both rich yet somehow quite light (the flavours themselves are hit or miss), despite being premade in the US, frozen and shipped over. We’d happily buy a slice for an occasional afternoon teatime treat.

Beverly Hills Cheesecake is at #B1-70, Raffles City Shopping Centre. Tel: 9723-2405. www.facebook.com/pg/BeverlyhillscheesecakeSingapore.

PHOTOS: MARK LEE & YIP JIEYING
FOOD STYLING: YIP JIEYING