With restaurants across the globe scrambling to emulate his cuisine, his ever-changing concepts, and his team’s tech-brilliant reservation system, this boundary-pushing chef is content to lead and let the rest follow. Achatz continues to quietly demonstrate a preternatural ability to suss out trends before they’re trends. Mike Gebert, editor of Grub Street Chicago, likens him to Steve Jobs: “He’s in the business of giving people what they had no idea they wanted until he invented it. Then they had to have it.”

Photograph: ZBIGNIEW BZDAK/CHICAGO TRIBUNE