Born in Arras, Northern France, in 1961, in a family who has ultimately Italian roots, Jean-Christophe Novelli worked in a bakery before becoming (at the age of 20) a personal chef to the Rothschild family.

He moved to Britain in 1983, to run Keith Floyd`s Maltster`s Arms restaurant in Totnes, Devon. He won the first of two Michelin stars at Le Provence in Lymington before becoming head chef at the Four Seasons Hotel on Hyde Park Corner.

In 1996 he founded his restaurant, Maison Novelli, in Clerkenwell, Central London. He has opened further restaurants in London, France and South Africa and continues to expand his activities, acting a chef patron or consultant to various establishments and moving into the gastro-pub market, the first of which was "The White Horse", in Harpenden. He appeared in the first series of The Games in 2003 and also became a head chef on Hell`s Kitchen in 2005. In the same year he opened a cooking school called the Novelli Academy at his Hertfordshire farmhouse near Luton.

He has 21 dogs (most of them Doberman Pinschers) and drives a Porsche Cayenne.

On 5 September 2007 Novelli was awarded Honorary Doctor of Arts from the University of Bedfordshire.

Twice divorced with a 20 year old daughter named Christina from his first marriage, Novelli got engaged in November 2007 to his girlfriend of 2 years, Michelle Kennedy, with the couple announcing in February 2008 that they are expecting their first child. . On the 29 August 2008, the couple welcomed a healthy baby boy called Jean Frank Patrick Kennedy, in Los Angeles.

In 2006, Novelli appeared on The X Factor: Battle of the Stars, performing in a group with fellow chefs Aldo Zilli, Paul Rankin and Ross Burden. Novelli can presently be seen on the new ITV1 programme …Cooks!

He has been a contestant on Family Fortunes and on 2 May 2007 appeared on "You`re Fired!" on BBC Two, the show following "The Apprentice" on BBC One.