10:30 a.m.NEW YORK — A Chicago chef who credits his training at the French Laundry in Yountville — as well as the tongue cancer that nearly ended his life — was named the nation's top chef Sunday by the James Beard Foundation.

The award marked another victory in a tumultuous year for Grant Achatz, who last July was diagnosed with Stage 4 tongue cancer, underwent aggressive treatment to save his life and sense of taste, and by December was cancer free.

Achatz told the crowd of food world elite gathered for the awards he credits lessons learned when he was 22 and working with French Laundry chef Thomas Keller at the Napa County landmark restaurant with teaching him not just how to cook, but also how to survive.

Those lessons were going to "make me a good cook and ultimately a great chef. What I didn't know was that it was actually going to save my life," he said.

"That drive, that tenacity, that dedication that I took in at that restaurant ... it became a part of who I am 12 years later and helped me get through a pretty ridiculous battle."

Achatz' cooking at his 3-year-old restaurant, Alinea, has come to define the so-called molecular gastronomy movement, an approach to eating about as similar to home cooking as particle physics is to a junior chemistry set.

His ultramodern style has crafted menus that read like the shopping list of a culinary mad scientist, with items such as "black truffle explosion, romaine, parmesan" and "transparency of raspberry, rose petal, yogurt."

Achatz thanked the many chefs in the crowd for their offers to help during his battle with cancer.

"I didn't let any of them come to the restaurant and cook as they suggested. I couldn't do that to the cooks," he said with a laugh.

Alinea was named the nation's top restaurant by Gourmet magazine in 2006, and Achatz previously won Beard awards for rising star chef in 2002 and 2003, and for best chef in the Great Lakes region last year.

The James Beard awards are known as the Oscars of the food world, and honor those who follow in the footsteps of Beard, considered the dean of American cooking when he died in 1985.