Japanese cheese-tart shop Bake Singapore will open its first outlet next week in Ion Orchard mall.

It will be the company’s flagship shop for Southeast Asia.

Kinotoya, a Western confectioneer established in Hokkaido in 2011, found its cheese tarts so popular it set up speciality shop Bake three years later in Tokyo. Now there are nine outlets across Japan, as well as in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Seoul.

Bake sold 10 million tarts in Japan last year, and the shops often attract queues.

“From here, we can reach out to many different countries,” says Bake president/chief executive Shintaro Naganuma, who is in Singapore for the store’s launch. “Tourists from around the region and world often come to or transit in Singapore.”

The tarts are an international affair, featuring two types of cream cheese from Hokkaido and a third cream cheese from France. The crispy pastry is baked twice.

In Singapore, the cheese tarts will be S$3.50 (US$2.60) each, with a box of six tarts for S$19.50. Each customer is limited to 12 tarts at a time.