Achatz wins Beard honor as most outstanding chef
Chicago's own Grant Achatz, of the cutting-edge restaurant Alinea in Lincoln Park, won the national James Beard Foundation award for outstanding chef.
Taking home one of the food industry's top prizes comes within the last 12 months when the 30-plus year-old chef announced he had late-stage oral cancer. Now in remission, he has gained back all the weight he lost, he said recently.
(AP)
Carrie Nahabedian, chef and co-owner of River North eatery Naha, was also among the winners at Sunday's night's award ceremony in New York City.
Nahabedian, nominated three times now, won in the category "Best Chef Great Lakes," which included finalists from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, according to the Web sites for the James Beard Awards as well as Naha, 500 N. Clark St.
Nahabedian beat fellow Chicago nominees Graham Elliot Bowls of Avenues In The Peninsula Chicago, 108 E. Superior, and Bruce Sherman of North Pond, 2610 N. Cannon Drive.
The restaurant's Web site describes Nahabedian's cooking style as one that draws from her "Armenian roots" and her time as a chef in California.