Chef Info

Executive Chef James B. Noble II

Jim Noble graduated from North Carolina State University, where he earned a degree in engineering from the School of Industrial Engineering, in the furniture manufacturing and management program. His father was in the furniture business and Jim always thought he would be as well. Little did he know that the path would lead him a much different direction.

During a visit to Napa Valley in 1982, Chef Noble had a vision for a restaurant whose cuisine was fashioned by the marriage of food and wine, each using and complimenting each other, bringing out the best in the other. Early the next year he began work on a restaurant in his home town of High Point, NC, and in July he opened Restaurant J. Basil Noble.

Having no formal cooking training Noble extensively studied the work of Auguste Escoffier, the first chef to commit the secrets of preparing French cuisine to written form. He also studied the writing works of Julia Child, and enjoyed watching the French Chef television shows.

In the late 1980’s he traveled back to Napa Valley and made appearances as Duckhorn Vineyard’s Guest Chef at the Napa Valley Wine Auction. In addition, Noble has cooked for vintners such as Spottswood, Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Beringer, Matanzas Creek, Shafer and Frog’s Leap to name a few, thus furthering his dream to pair great wine with great food.

Chef Jim has won many acclaims as he has branched out from his High Point start to open restaurants in Winston-Salem, Greensboro and the latest, Noble’s Restaurant in Charlotte. John Martin Taylor, in The New Southern Cook says “One of the best chefs in the South Jimmy Noble in North Carolina, whose insistence on the finest ingredients in his restaurants may well make him the closest thing we have to an East Coast Alice Waters.” The Charlotte Business Journal says, “There’s little doubt Noble’s vies with few competitors to claim the crown of the best restaurant in Charlotte.”

Over 20 years after that first 55 seat restaurant, Jim Noble is still pushing the limits of his vision to be the best. Using local farmers and organic ingredients he is setting new standards and continues to develop style that he calls “New Southern Cuisine”.