GENEVA, August 8, 2008 (AFP) - Swiss police said Friday that a celebrated gourmet whose disappearance from a celebrated Catalan restaurant sparked a massive manhunt has been seen alive and well back in Geneva.

Pascal Henry, 46, was caught on closed-circut television withdrawing money from an automatic dispenser in the Swiss city, a police spokesman told AFP.

Henry was on a tour of the world's top 68 restaurants -- and had just finished dinner on June 9 at the El Bulli on the Costa Brava, reknowned for its avant-garde cuisine -- when he went missing.

'We have lots of information to establish this person is still alive,' the police spokesman said.

'But we won't be making any further comment because this is an adult, he has the right to disappear if he wants. It's up to him if he wants to make contact with the media,' he added.

The information was passed via Interpol to the Spanish police, who said it would not stop their search efforts.

On Thursday, they carried out a new search of a steep wooded area of about 100 hectares (250 acres) between Rosas and Cala Montjoi on the Costa Brava, where the restaurant run by Spanish chef Ferran Adria is located.

Henry, 46, was being sponsored by the French chef Paul Bocuse. He began his culinary tour at Bocuse's restaurant in central France on May 5.

Bocuse had given him a notebook in which all the chefs were asked to write down the menu that they had served him.

Henry left the notebook, together with a photo album and his hat, at the restaurant, the manager, Juli Soler, told Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper.

'He said he was just going outside to look for a visiting card and he did not return,' Soler was quoted as saying.

The restaurant notified authorities, but there was no sign of him at any hotel or hospital. He also failed to turn up at the next scheduled stops on his tour in Spain's northern Basque region.