A renowned Ontario chef whose family reported him missing after not hearing from him for several days was located outside the province Thursday afternoon.

Jonathan Gushue, who heads the kitchen at Langdon Hall, a luxury hotel in Cambridge, Ont., is alive and well, police said, though they're not saying where.

"We had a job to do: find a missing person," said Waterloo Regional Police spokesman Olaf Heinzel. "We located him. We're satisfied he's OK and in that sense we're pretty well closing the case on this."

Gushue was last seen checking out of a hotel in downtown Toronto on New Year's Eve, though the 41-year-old's relatives hadn't heard from him since the day before, police said.

The chef has disappeared for days at a time in the past, but the length of time since his family had last heard from him this time prompted them to call police.

Investigators had said he may have also been going by the name Jonathan Herder, using his middle name as his last name.

Assisted by other police department

Police are now closing the case, saying it's not their job to see that he returns to Ontario.

"Our concern was to locate him and report back to the family and that's what we've done," Heinzel said. "It was reported to us from another police agency that he is fine."

When asked if Gushue himself contacted police to let them know he was safe, Heinzel simply said they had "located him with the assistance of another police service."

Chef David Sider is filling in for Gushue, Langdon Hall said this week.

Before taking his current job, Gushue worked at several high-profile hotel restaurants, including the now-closed Truffles restaurant at the Four Seasons in Toronto.

A biography on the Langdon Hall website said the award-winning chef was born in St. John's, N.L., but moved away at age 19.