The cheesetart craze has started a new wave with the launch of the first ever PABLO store in 1Utama.

Founded by Mr. Masamitsu Sakimoto in 2011, PABLO today has 30 stores in Japan, and has outlets in Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta and now, Malaysia. Since inception, PABLO has sold 6 million of its classic cheesetarts. PABLO promises to offer a unique cheese dessert experience unlike others.

Sakimoto took six months in product development to create the perfect heavenly cheesetart recipe. “We coined the term odorokashi, a play on words that means ‘desserts with an element of surprise’.” This means having a delicious product is not enough, there must be an element of surprise in store for customers as well.

Named after the famous painter Pablo Picasso, these cheesetarts are meant to be works of art

So, how does it perform? We tasted the Freshly Baked Cheese Tart and found it to be custard-like – the cheese taste was subtle – too subtle for my tastes but it wasn’t overly sweet, which is a plus point. Is it worth the RM45.90? If you like creamy oozy gooey texture, then yes. I would like to try the mini cheesetart though – as I could then compare it head on with the likes of Tokyo Secret and Hokkaido cheesetarts.

For health nuts out there, the cheesetart is 900 kCal – so divided into six parts, it’s ONLY 150kCal. So, sharing is caring and good for your waistline!

(L-R): Cheese Tart Crunchy and Sabrel Cheese taste great with coffee

The cookies, however, taste amazing. The Sabrel Cheese is very cheesy and nicely crispy for a cookie, while the Cheese Tart Crunchy tastes like crushed macarons binded together with a deliciously sweet milk concoction – there’s no hint of cheese here, unfortunately. Still, they go really well with coffee.

PABLO offers a vibrant signature of freshly-baked cheese tarts, pastries, cheese puddings, cookies, drinks and soft serve ice cream. They come in a range of flavours including original (plain cheese), chocolate, matcha, etc. Customers can even customise PABLO’s soft, creamy filling and texture like steak – medium or rare!

Amber Chia and Masamitsu Sakimoto

(L-R): The Malaysian MD and Chef Wan

The friendly and cheerful counter staff. They may just break out into the Pablo dance and song gig at regular intervals!

There is no space for sitting in, so customers can only order for take away. The price ranges from RM8.90 for a mini cheesetart to RM79.90 for a premium cheesetart. The queue was really really long that first day, and we expect it to be this way for some time. But the queue management is great and customers’ orders are capped, so the wait may just be worth your while!