When I have more than 45 minutes of connection time in an airport, I prefer to find a table-service restaurant where I can lay down my burdens and unwind, if only for twenty minutes. Wolfgang Puck Express serves this purpose nicely in Chicago's O'Hare Airport, where the celebrity chef runs three outlets (Terminal One and Units A and B of Terminal Three). Don't let the "Express" in the name fool you; you get an ample meal in exchange for a modest investment of time. "Only the salmon," the waiter informed me, "takes a few minutes more."

Wolfgang Puck's motto (emblazoned in large letters on the restaurant's wall), is "Live, Love and Eat," although in addition to these worthwhile pursuits Wolfgang himself must be spending a good deal of his time designing menus that really work. Menu items are hearty and at the same time stimulating: tortilla soup with grilled chicken, fire-roasted tomatoes and feta cheese; "Chinois Chicken" salad with crispy wontons and honey-mustard dressing; penne pasta with chicken strips over a base of broccoli rabe dusted with parmesan cheese. Among "Wolf's Famous Wood-Fired Pizzas," even seemingly mundane offerings like sausage and pepperoni may contain pesto, fontina cheese, sauteed mushrooms, carmelized garlic and other with-it ingredients. Wolfgang, a trailblazer in this kind of cuisine, succeeds where others merely muddy the waters. (He's not actually there in the kitchen, but he might as well be; you do feel his touch.)

Next time I need to escape O'Hare's frenzy for a few meditative moments I'm going to try one of Wolfgang's wood-fired foccacia sandwiches with a side of herbed fries, or maybe the butternut squash soup topped with red pepper swirl, then make my plane and feel properly refueled.