YOU'D imagine that dining on the same brand of smoked ocean trout used by one of the best chefs in the world, Sydney-based Tetsuya Wakuda, would be a pricey experience at a fancy restaurant.

Other gourmet store cafes Absolutely New Zealand Block 106 Clementi Street 12, 01-38D Store and cafe open: noon to 9pm (Tuesdays to Thursdays), 11am to 9pm (Fridays to Sundays) Highlights: New Zealand Natural ice cream, $3.20 for one scoop, and cheese platter, $10 onwards Archangel 1 Kim Seng Promenade, 03-33, Great World City Store and cafe open: 10am to 9pm daily Highlights: Crab sandwich on squid ink bread, $10.50, and duck confit, $20 Bluespoon Block 21 Ghim Moh Road, 01-213 Store and cafe open: 10am to 10pm (closed on Mondays and public holidays) Highlights: Shepherd's pie, $5.50, and New Zealand ribeye steak, $15.90 Bunalun 43 Jalan Merah Saga, 01-70 Store open: 9am to 9pm daily Cafe open: 9am to 4.30pm daily Highlights: Muesli trifle, $9.50, and quinoa salad with organic chicken, corn, scallions and mint, $25 Corduroy & Finch 779 Bukit Timah Road Store and cafe open: 8am to late daily Highlights: Corduroy & Finch combination of mezze, tapas and antipasti sampler, $19 for one, and steak au poivre, $29 Culina Block 8, Dempsey Road, 01-13 Store and cafe open: 10am to 8pm (Mondays to Fridays), 9am to 8pm (Saturdays), 9am to 7pm (Sundays) Highlights: Culina 1824 steak sandwich, $13, and Tetsuya's pan-seared ocean trout, $25 Hediard 123-125 Tanglin Road Store and cafe open: 9am to 8pm daily Highlights: Croq Ferdinand, grilled bread with parma ham, gruyere cheese and mornay sauce, $16, and Atlantic Discovery, Danish, Scottish and Norwegian smoked salmon with chive cream and blinis, $35 Jones The Grocer Block 9, Dempsey Road, 01-12 Store and cafe open: 9.30am to 6pm (Mondays), 9.30am to 11pm (Tuesdays to Sundays) Highlights: Meredith marinated goat's cheese tart-tartin with argula and balsamic vinaigrette, $13.50, and cheese plate, $19.50 L'Organic Block 18, Unit A, Dempsey Road Store open: 10am to 7pm (Mondays to Fridays), 8am to 5pm (Saturdays and Sundays) Cafe open: 10am to 5pm (Mondays to Fridays), 8am to 5pm (Saturdays and Sundays) Highlights: Couscous with raisin, mint and roasted vegetables, $10, and pasta sauteed with seasonal vegetables in tomato sauce, $18

Not so. Dreamy nosh endorsed by the world-famous chef is available at a low-key cafe here, of all places.

Just head to the hip hub of Tanglin Village - Dempsey Road, to be precise - and a place called Culina, which is best known as a food store that sells gourmet delights.

Culina serves the trout on a bed of salad greens at a discreet little cafe tucked in a corner of its store. The fish used in this $25 dish is part of Wakuda's line of gourmet food products that Culina stocks, which they serve straight from the package, dressed with a little balsamic vinaigrette.

The Culina experience is part of a trend here to have intimate casual eateries in speciality food stores.

Diners enjoy relaxed meals featuring quality produce, as shoppers pop in for anything from premium chocolate truffles and exclusively sourced cheeses to Iranian oscietra caviar.

In the last year, no fewer than six gourmet food stores have opened such cafes that seat around 30 people, bringing the total number doing this to at least nine.

These cafes showcase and promote the speciality food items available in the shops' retail aisles, say storeowners.

Ms Tuyet Nguyen, 32, managing director of organic grocer L'Organic in Dempsey Road, which opened a cafe in June within its six-month-old store says: 'Gourmet food stores carry products that are typically unfamiliar to local taste buds. An in-store cafe brings these items together in dishes, which allow customers to try the merchandise.

'The idea is that the customer will like the food products enough to buy them off the shelves.'

And this concept is working. Ms Nguyen estimates that the cafe has boosted the store's retail business by about 20 per cent.

Likewise, Mr Murray Aitken, 37, president of Corduroy Lifestyle Holdings, has observed a 'good number of such crossover customers' at its two-year-old gourmet food store and cafe outlet, Corduroy & Finch in Bukit Timah.

Indeed, marketing director Abhijit Patwardhan, 43, ordered the dips platter from Jones The Grocer's cafe on a recent visit and loved the taste of the beetroot and almond dip so much - 'sweet, with the hint of a wasabi-like bite' - that he's determined to pick up a tub of it on his next trip.

Six of the nine premium food store-cum-cafe outlets that LifeStyle interviewed stressed, however, that retail remains their main focus and while their cafes feature fine food products, they do not claim to offer fine dining.

Mr John Burdsall, 37, managing director of three-year-old premium organic food store Bunalun in Chip Bee Gardens, says: 'The dining in our store is more a tasting bar than a full-fledged cafe.'

That said, these informal cafes continue to draw a following based on their own merits.

'The dishes may be uncomplicated, but it is this simplicity in preparation that allows the premium quality of the fine food products to shine through,' says personal chef Ryan Hong, 44, who is a fan of the beef burger offered at Culina.

For public relations executive Melissa Tan, 26, the laid-back atmosphere at these informal cafes, where maintaining a steady customer turnover is not a store priority, makes them ideal weekend brunch escapes.

In fact, the cafe at Bluespoon in Ghim Moh has been so successful that its sales are more than double those of the store's speciality frozen food such as New Zealand ribeye steak and Swedish meatballs.

'My customers are hungry for convenience, and dining at the store's cafe saves them the trouble of preparing the frozen food products at home,' says Bluespoon owner Dillon Chew, 44.

The rash of speciality food-store cafes has not prompted stiff competition among players, however. Storeowners say their unique offerings differentiate their cafe menu and appeal.

Mrs Verena Raveton, 41, managing director of luxury French food brand Hediard's local cafe-boutique, says: 'There might be other grocer-cafe concepts out there, but none share our Parisian signature and European stamp of luxury.'