In 2005, Achatz decided to open his own restaurant, so he picked the name Alinea for his restaurant in Chicago, which quickly entered the Top 50 restaurants in the USA in the list made by “Gourmet Magazine” in 2006. The magazine “Restaurant” included Alinea in his list of the 50 best restaurants in the world with position number 36, being the highest new entry in 2007. The next year, Alinea went 15 places up in that same list, reaching number 21 in the whole world. Alinea kept going higher and reached the 10th place in the world in 2009, then the 7th in 2010, when it also got the award as the highest-ranked restaurant in the North American continent. The position of Alinea in the North American Ranking didn’t change in 2011, but they and they went up one position in the world ranking, by reaching the 6th place. In 2012 Alinea lost his 1st place in North America and the 6th place in the world against the restaurant “Per Se”.

In 2009, Achatz and his staff designed the menu of the restaurant Ikarus in Salzburg, Austria. The place brings a top chef from a different restaurant each month, and they re-design the menu and train the staff in the course of that month.

Alinea received three stars in the Michelin guide for Chicago in 2011, and they repeated themselves in the next year, being the only restaurant in Chicago to receive that high honor. Ashatz also owns the restaurant “Next” and the bar “Aviary” in Chicago.

In 2008, Achatz published with the co-author Nick Kokonas the book “Alinea”, a hardcover coffee table book in which there were more than 100 recipes of his restaurant. This book was also enriched by over 400 pictures of behind the scenes of Achatz and his staff while at work. In 2009 Achatz and Kokonas wrote the book “Life, On The Line", this book sold out in a matter of few hours given the fame of Achatz.