Like all other restaurants in the Dempsey cluster off Holland Road , La Fondue is rather inaccessible unless you are cabbing or driving. Still, the trip will be worth it for those who are in search of a novel dining experience.

La Fondue, as its name suggests, is a restaurant devoted to the dipping of various ingredients in pots of cheese, broths, oil or chocolate. The sheer variety may seem confusing, but the staff is helpful in making recommendations and explaining the menu to diners.

For simplicity's sake, go with one of the six available fondue sets. Each set is meant for two people, and comes with a choice of salad, a cheese fondue, a main course and a chocolate fondue for dessert. Depending on what is in your main course, a set begins from $70 for a vegetarian option to about $180 for premium meats and seafood.

Our Caesar salads were well tossed with a good amount of bacon bits and croutons. Not too much dressing was used, and the result was agreeably light - a necessity, considering the courses that were to follow.

The salad was followed by the cheese fondue. There are a number of options for you to choose from, from traditional Swiss cheese to Mexican herb cheese and wasabi cheese. We had the smoked cheese with black pepper fondue, which was savoury, thick and delicious with the basket of bread cubes it was served with, along with a platter of vegetables. Celery goes well with the cheese, as does potato and even broccoli, but my dining companion and I both enjoyed the foccacia bread best.

You can have your main course prepared in a number of ways - in a broth, or a bourguignonne, or even a grill. We had the fondue bourguignonne, which is best described as a steamboat with oil instead of water. You spear your raw ingredients and deep fry it in a bubbling pot of oil on your table. Some ingredients, such as the seafood, do tend to splatter a bit, and your clothes will smell of oil by the end of the meal, so do be warned. Still, I was impressed with the seafood we had at the tasting - the freshness of the prawns and lobster would put some dedicated seafood restaurants to shame. The meats were mostly well-marinated and tasted good enough on their own, so we didn't really need the assortment of sauces that came along with them.

There are many different types of chocolate fondue - choose between a wide selection of dark, milk and white chocolate - and you can even opt to add a shot of liquor for an extra $5 if you so prefer. We had the milk chocolate with a shot of Bailey's, and the result was a thick, rich and creamy concoction, though the Bailey's was hardly distinguishable. A platter of cut fruits, brownies and marshmallows are meant for you to dip into the fondue, but I feel that some of the ingredients are better enjoyed on their own, rather than dunked into the chocolate. I was slightly disappointed with the brownies though, as they crumbled too easily and could not be properly dunked. Still, the highlight of the fondue is the chocolate itself, and spoons are thoughtfully provided so you can just dig in without bothering with the other ingredients, which was what we did. However, if you prefer something less creamy at the end of a meal, I would suggest opting for dark chocolate instead.

Despite its location, La Fondue had a good crowd on the weekday evening we were there. The 60-seater restaurant also offers a la carte chocolate fondue for dessert after 10pm every Friday and Saturday - a great option for chocoholics in search of supper. While the focus is on fondues, the restaurant also serves breakfasts on weekends from 8am - 2:30pm, with ten varieties of pancakes and other goodies available. For the month of November, AsiaOne readers can enjoy a 1-for-1 promotion for the weekend breakfast (see details below).

Being a new restaurant, La Fondue does have aspects which could benefit from a bit of fine tuning. Still, it has the potential to draw in the crowds, as long as it continues to focus on serving quality ingredients.

La Fondue
25 Dempsey Road, #01-04
Tel: 6474 0204