Food for thought: what's cooking at Johnson & Wales University teaches students and adds zest to Charlotte's financial district.

Late in the afternoon, along West Trade Street just a few blocks from the heart of Charlotte's financial district, there rises a sweet aroma. It's the smell of success, though not the financial kind. It is of croissant and tart, yeast roll and pie. Dressed in white, just beyond the plate glass and close enough to touch from the sidewalk outside, students of one of North Carolina's newest institutions of higher education busy themselves in their classroom, amid stainless steel and clanking utensils.

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In four years, Johnson & Wales University's Charlotte campus has risen like a souffle, buoyed by a booming industry and raised expectations of foodies willing to make superstars of those whose fare appeals to their palates. Not for nothing have Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse become household names. "The hospitality industry and food service have been around as long as the human race," says Art Gallagher, president of the school. "But in the last 15 years or so, the electronic media has had a tremendous impact on them."

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Johnson & Wales came here in 2004, consolidating its Norfolk, Va., and Charleston, S.C., schools in an urban setting anchored by a 300,000-square-foot, five-story academic building and 750-resident dorm. "We look slick and modern, but truly we're a working-class institution," Gallagher says. About 80% of the 2,550 students enrolled are the first in their families to attend college. Half are from North Carolina. Founded in 1914 in Providence, R.I., Johnson & Wales also has campuses there and in Denver and North Miami.

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In Charlotte, about half the students pursue four-year degrees in business and in hospitality management. The rest are in two-year culinary and baking / pastry programs. Both degree tracks blend in academic courses found in most colleges, but it's the hands-on training of future kitchen magicians that has cast its spell on, and given new zest to, the Queen City. The school dining halls are popular lunch spots for downtown workers, with leftover baked goods going to a food bank. Students supply dishes twice a day to 16 local restaurants and must perform internships with various hospitality-related businesses.

Base tuition is $21,000 a year, and with all the theoretical and practical work involved, earning a degree is no cakewalk. But, as in cooking, prep work pays off--98% land jobs within two months of graduating. Most hope to open their own restaurants someday, Gallagher says. "We want students to experience the tastes of different foods to get their own sensory abilities refined to the point they understand different tastes, aromas and textures."

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They're not the only ones. "I eat at one of the student dining rooms about once a week," he says. "If I ate here every day, I'd probably have quite a weight problem."