Back in November, we described how the fantastic tamales at Pappasito’s Cantina had helped to salvage an otherwise tedious delay at the Dallas Fort Worth airport. Since then, we’ve been keeping an eye out for local food specialties to break the monotony of the fairly generic airport experience and at least glean a little flavor of a place that we’re only passing through. We had practically written off Atlanta airport where the nice little food court in Terminal B had a fairly predictable line-up of Sbarro pizza, Popeye’s Fried Chicken & Biscuits, Seattle’s Best Coffee, and even sandwiches from Boston-based Au Bon Pain. But, it pays not to give up too quickly. Away from the food court area, we discovered Café Intermezzo, a coffee shop modeled on those in Germany and Austria. It was first established in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody in 1979 and also has an outlet in the Brookwood neighborhood of Atlanta and another downtown. Since December 2009, it has shared space with Buckhead Books in Terminal B at ATL.

The cafe has a full menu of soups, salads, sandwiches, and pastas–and an irresistible selection of European-style cakes and tortes that beckon to harried travelers from a well-lighted display case. Not knowing that one slice would be more than enough for two, we ordered a Golden Chocolate Torte (three layers of buttery golden cake with chocolate butter cream and dark chocolate shavings) and an aptly named Heavenly Lemon Torte (lemon cake and lemon cream cheese icing). Both had light golden cake that was not overly sweet, and both frostings were intense yet fairly light. (Good thing, since the slices were about six inches high.) Our server Tangi also extolled the virtues of the Red Velvet Torte with fresh strawberries and the Strawberry Vanilla Bean Mousse Torte. We’re almost looking forward to passing through Atlanta again.