Credit: Marc Burkhardt

When Grant Achatz's French Laundry pals come to visit him in the serene, light-filled kitchen of his Chicago restaurant, Alinea, the scene strikes them as familiar. Why shouldn't it? They all used to work together. For the dozen years since it opened, the French Laundry, in California's Napa Valley, has come in first in most surveys of the country's best restaurants. As an ambitious young chef from a family of unambitious cooks in Michigan, Achatz talked Thomas Keller, the chef-owner of the French Laundry, into giving him a job practically sight unseen, and he ended up as sous-chef--second in command--for two of his four years there. He wanted to be as close as he could to the best. And now, at all of 32, Achatz has just seen Gourmet magazine name Alinea the best restaurant in America.

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