(FORTUNE Magazine) – Airport dining, like English cuisine, is no longer necessarily a contradiction in terms. As airports play host to ever larger hordes of travelers, many marooned by flight delays and most more critical than yesterday's sullen captives, caterers are making the experience tolerable or even pleasant. Fresh food, never a frequent flier, is replacing portion-controlled, heat- and-serve entrees. In a few airports new or remodeled full-service restaurants may even convince the traveler he's not in an airport. Prices are still generally high, since airport diners are classic examples of consumers without alternatives; a full-course dinner can soar to $50 in some places. The thought of making reservations does not automatically leap to mind for airport restaurants, and indeed none require them. But if you expect to be eating at a peak travel time or plan a meeting over a meal, most establishments will let you reserve. Sky Chefs, one of the big airport caterers, has made a serious attempt to turn eating into dining at the new Signature Room in Denver. The decor is elegant yet comfortable, mauve and salmon with an art deco touch, and waiters sport tuxedos. ''Are you on a particular schedule?'' our hostess asks, ready to put the kitchen on alert. Among the surprising menu items: Belgian endive salad with radicchio, warm spinach salad with enoki mushrooms, corn soup, and Chateau St. Jean Fume Blanc from the Sonoma Valley. A crawfish straddles a bouillabaisse salad loaded with seafood and garnished artfully with julienne vegetables. There are some rough spots -- tournedos in a Pinot Noir sauce with shiitake mushrooms are a bit chewy -- but let's not quibble: This is a step in the right direction. Entrees range from $10 to $26. The restaurant is near the new E Concourse; open every day for lunch from 11 A.M. to 2:30 P.M. and for dinner from 4 to 9 P.M. Telephone: 303-398-3683. There's a new restaurant called California Place in the Theme building at Los Angeles International, the saucer in the sky that affords one of the best airport views in the country. The principal fare is so-called spa cuisine, fresh and light food, along with such staples as cheeseburgers. The atmosphere is Miami Vice a la Malibu, mint green and pale orange, softly lit. Daily specials of Pacific seafood come with wine recommendations (California, of course). A recent match was sauteed sea bass and Callaway Temecula Chardonnay (a bargain at $10.50 a bottle). The stir-fried entrees, including shrimp, chicken, and vegetables, were refreshingly crisp and flavorful in a tangy sesame sauce. The restaurant is a ten-minute walk from the farthest terminal. Entrees from $7.95 to $16.95; 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. and 5 to 10:30 P.M.; Sunday hours are 10 A.M. to 10 P.M.; 213-646-5471. As you might expect, seafood is the theme at Boston's Logan Airport. The dining room (it has no other name) is a woody, understated new spot in Terminal C, run by Ogden/Allied, that boasts fish bought daily and Maine lobster. The broiled scrod could pass muster anywhere, as could the fried seafood platter. Lobster, deftly disassembled and artfully presented, was not as sweet as hoped for, possibly because of overcooking. Entrees range from $7.75 to $12.50 except for lobster, which can run to $19. Open every day, 11 A.M. to 9 P.M., no reservations. At Terminal B, Marriott/Host operates an Olde New England-style supper room called the Tavern, replete with pewter plates, armchairs, and antiquelike furniture. The food is okay, basic seafood and beef complemented with nice touches such as cranberry bread. But the scrod not long ago was rubbery, and second best to the Terminal C dining room. Entrees range from $10 to $15; noon to 3 P.M. and 3:30 to 9 P.M. Any restaurant called the Captain's Table, especially in an airport and especially in Pittsburgh, can give the greasy fried willies to a seafood lover. But Lou Copola, manager of the 14-month-old place, says the putative captain is an airline pilot, not a sea skipper. (Does this mean your dinner will be delayed an hour?) In any case the Captain does well enough with fairly standard entrees. Blue-cheese salad dressing is homemade, with real blue cheese. Filet mignon is reasonably tender. On this visit the catch of the day was tuna Cajun style, a.k.a. blackened tuna, and it survived the treatment in juicy shape. Entrees range from $10 to $15; open every day, 6 A.M. to 10 P.M; 412-264-8000. Not all the superior airport restaurants are new. Among the above-average old standbys is the Terrace, run by Marriott, at New York's LaGuardia. A large open room on the fourth level, it overlooks the main runway and Long Island Sound. The menu is compact, offering four appetizers, a few salads, and some basics in fish, fowl, and beef, augmented by daily specials featuring pasta and seafood. Service is professional. Our waiter's recommendation, poached salmon, was meaty and delicate. Fettuccine tuscana, the evening's winner, included spinach noodles in a cream sauce with scallops, baby shrimp, and a little crabmeat. Skip the skimpy veal. Entrees range from $9.75 to $17.25; 11 A.M. to 3:30 P.M.; 4 to 9:30 P.M.; 718-476-5400. Marriott does not do so well at JFK International. Its two main restaurants, the International Buffet at the International Terminal and Schuyler's at the Pan Am Terminal, offer so-called international buffets. But the only touch is the bland beef Bourguignon, apparently mandated by law at all buffets. If you are not a meat eater, you're likely to be disappointed. If you are one, the sliced fillet of beef is excellent. The buffet is $12.95; open every day, noon to 10 P.M. Telephone: International, 718-995-3611; Schuyler's, 656-8610. Chicago's Seven Continents restaurant, run by Carson Pirie Scott of department store fame, is a cavernous room blunted by dark-maroon carpeting and dotted with weary-looking executives solemnly eating dinner. But the food consoles. To keep with the food-from-all-worlds theme, the restaurant offers such items as dover sole and duckling St. Hubert (cooked in its own fat, served with tiny mushrooms and a green peppercorn sauce). There are also more than 40 wines from places as disparate as Australia and Israel. Smoked salmon with caviar and salmon roe is exquisitely presented, even if the salmon recently was on the dry side. A main course of veal piccata was faultless. The menu features a half-dozen entrees designed for quick delivery, a feature lacking elsewhere. The restaurant is in the rotunda between terminals 2 and 3. Entrees from $14 to $17; Sunday to Friday from 8 A.M. to 9 P.M.; Saturday, 8 A.M. to 3 P.M.; 312-686-6100. The Amfac complex in the center of Dallas-Fort Worth airport offers the traveler six restaurants and, perhaps just as important, an island of tranquillity amid the roiling sea of airport hustle. The choices range from Northern Italian to deli to buffet. A company spokesperson says that a weekend seafood buffet at Papaya's attracts 80% nonairport traffic. Price: $18.95 (Friday and Saturday, 6 to 11 P.M.). The Northern Italian spot, Il Nonno's, has the requisite red, green, and white decor with plenty of wrought iron. It also has singing waiters, a feature that can cause real anguish given the usual caliber of talent. Here the entertainment is better than you'd expect, even enjoyable, because most of the servers are voice students from nearby North Texas State University. The kitchen shows talent too. The best of the generally fine pasta dishes is pasta tricolore pastici, a melange of three fettuccine -- tomato, saffron, and spinach -- and meat tortellini, all in a cream sauce. Veal scaloppine stuffed with prosciutto and provolone cheese and topped with sauce mornay, quite a busy dish, holds up nicely. The pastas ($5.95 to $6.75) are reasonable; the veal ($17.95 to $19.95) is not. Open every day, 6 to 11 P.M. The complex is between the Eastern and American terminals and is accessible by air trains, small shuttles that connect the ^ farthest terminals in about five minutes. Telephone for all the restaurants: 214-453-8400. A LESS PRICEY alternative is Sullivan O'Shaughnessy's, a 24-hour deli and diner in the West tower that airline personnel seem to favor. Despite the stupid name, a well-thought-out menu offers grazing food including potato skins and nachos (some under the apt label ''Good Stuff and Fattening Things'') plus a nice selection of salads and ''good for your heart'' dishes such as boneless, skinless chicken breast with steamed broccoli. Prices from $4.95 to $7.95. Unfortunately, not every airport caterer has got the message. A longstanding travel joke is that whether you go to heaven or hell, you'll have to change planes in Atlanta. Just consider eating there to be a kind of purgatory. The Passport II restaurant has that worn brown-and-burnt-orange cafeteria look that became unwelcoming about six months after it opened. A shrimp cocktail recently was soggy and warm, just like the salad; each seemed to have been prepared hours, if not days, earlier and left to die. Blackened redfish -- will McDonald's be offering this soon? -- tastes okay, but it's a long way from the spicy, crunchy delight that came out of K-Paul's in New Orleans. Maybe someone here should take a trip to the Denver airport.