| Jean-Christophe Novelli | |
| Birth Date: | 22 February 1961 |
| Birth Place: | Arras, France |
| Style: | Mediterranean Style French |
| Restaurants: | Novelli at City Quays, AC Marriott - Belfast NI |
| Children: | 4, including Christina |
Jean-Christophe Novelli (in French pronounced as /ʒɑ̃ kʁistɔf nɔvɛli/; born 22 February 1961) is a French chef, restaurateur and television personality.
Novelli was born in Arras, in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France, in 1961. He left school at 14 and worked in a bakery before, at the age of 20, becoming a personal chef to the Rothschild family. His father's family is Italian.[1]
Novelli moved to Britain in 1983, working in several establishments including the Chewton Glen Hotel in New Milton, Hampshire, later running Keith Floyd's Maltster's Arms restaurant in Totnes, Devon. He won the first of four Michelin stars as Chef Patron at Gordleton Mill in Lymington, Hampshire and was awarded Best Outstanding Dessert by Egon Ronay before becoming head chef at the Four Seasons Hotel on Hyde Park Corner, London. In 1996 he founded his restaurant, Maison Novelli, in Clerkenwell, London.
He opened further restaurants in London, France and South Africa. Novelli also expanded into the gastro-pub market, his first being The White Horse in Harpenden. In 2005 he launched the Novelli Academy Cookery School based at his home in Hertfordshire. He opened his first of many brasserie concept restaurants in the Double Tree Hilton Hotel in Liverpool but withdrew the brand after a mutual decision between the brand and the owner in January 2016. In 2018 he opened 'Novelli at City Quays' in the new AC Marriott hotel in the City Quays, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
In 2013 Novelli launched recipe book, "Simply Novelli". In it he aimed to eliminate the myth that French cuisine is difficult and time-consuming to prepare.
In 2016 The Novelli Restaurant Limited brand was created and the Restaurant Team devised three offerings mainly aimed at quality hotels: Terrané by Jean-Christophe Novelli