WHEN modern European restaurant Infuzi defied convention three years ago by opening in the culinary wilderness of Buona Vista, it aimed to build up a client base the old-fashioned way - slowly and steadily, through quality cuisine and positive word of mouth. The word on it then was that it was a secret dining destination characterised by a professional approach and a refreshing lack of fuss and pretension.

Infuzi has held up its end of the bargain by dispensing consistently good food and a pleasant dining experience, but it is still something of a secret when it deserves instead to be a more prominent factor in the local dining scene. It has a core group of fans but its obscure location in Biopolis, the biomedical sciences centre, has been difficult to overcome.

The restaurant, with its cheerful off-white colour scheme, its ultra mod bottle chandeliers and a charmingly retro decor straight out of an Austin Powers movie set, remains relatively undiscovered and, as a result, highly underrated too. There may be easier restaurants to locate, but not many in its category offer a higher level of culinary satisfaction.

Given its quality, the type of cuisine it serves - French with Asian accents - and the small size of the independent restaurant community, it comes as no surprise to learn that Infuzi has a strong link to the Les Amis Group. Infuzi's owners, chef Freddie Lee and restaurant manager Purdey Poon, are both alumni of the group's flagship restaurant. Lee met original Les Amis chef and founding partner Justin Quek at The Oriental here, when both were working at the hotel's now-defunct French restaurant Fourchettes.

Lee ended up as one of the original members of the kitchen team at Les Amis, and spent a decade there with Quek, working his way up to sous chef before they both went their separate ways.

'The journey has been quite difficult and it's been a learning experience at every stage,' says Lee, who left the Les Amis Group several months after Quek.

Lee's culinary style is fundamentally sound and the food is fresh, uncomplicated and simply presented. It may lack that extra level of imagination but there is nothing wrong with a restaurant that features tasty, elegant cuisine and efficient service.

There is also more than a taste of Les Amis at Infuzi. 'If you miss the early JQ (Justin Quek) food of the first few years at Les Amis, you go to Freddie,' says Quek, who now has his own restaurants in Taipei and Shanghai.

'He goes for taste and classic dishes, and long-time guests from Les Amis can recognise the familiar style.'

A recent meal at Infuzi revealed that signature style to be very agreeable indeed. A five-course tasting menu was flawlessly executed, with ingredients in each dish thoughtfully combined and well balanced in terms of flavour. First, there was a starter of butter-roasted Maine lobster with marinated salmon roe, followed by grilled Hokkaido scallop with sauteed enoki mushrooms and spicy Italian sausage.

The next dish featured pan-fried foie gras and caramelised red onions on a puff pastry disc, which was followed by sauteed veal sweetbread, crisp on the outside and firm on the inside. Dessert arrived in the form of a warm lemon tart.

A three-course set lunch at Infuzi is priced at $35, while a six-course set dinner is $98. Classic dishes on the a la carte menu include crab cakes with yuzu dressing ($32), bouillabaisse ($50) and duck confit ($50).

'It's rewarding to have satisfied customers, but they still know more about Rochester Park than they do about Biopolis,' says Poon.

'Food-wise, the chef is creating new dishes all the time but the fundamentals are always there - clean and simple.'

Infuzi
10 Biopolis Road, #01-01
Chromos Block.
Tel: 6478-9091.
www.infuzi.com.sg