CAMBRIDGE, Ont. -- The search is on for a renowned Ontario chef whom police say has been missing for a week.
Jonathan Gushue -- who heads the kitchen at Langdon Hall, a luxury hotel in Cambridge, Ont. -- was last seen in downtown Toronto on New Year's Eve, Waterloo Regional Police said Monday.
Police spokesman Olaf Heinzel said the 41-year-old's relatives are "concerned for his well-being" because they haven't heard from him since Dec. 30.
"He had, to our understanding, checked into a hotel in Toronto and then checked out on the 31st," he said, adding police have been searching areas where he might have gone afterward.
It's not the first time Gushue has vanished -- Heinzel said the chef disappeared for "about three or four days" a few years ago.
But he said the length of his absence this time raised red flags and added to the investigation's urgency.
Gushue's colleagues at Langdon Hall were also worried by the news, a spokeswoman for the hotel said Monday.
"We do hope that with the added coverage on media and through social media this will help in locating his whereabouts and bring him home to his family," Jessica Pearce said in an email.
She said the hotel restaurant will nonetheless reopen Wednesday after its annual holiday break, with chef David Sider at the helm.
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.
Police described him as white, about five feet 10 inches tall and 180 pounds, with short dark hair and blue eyes.
They said he may go by the name Jonathan Herder, which is his middle name.
