Most chefs deploy emissaries to forage for unusual ingredients and exotic herbs. Simon Jones, in contrast, only needs to stroll around his own restaurant. As the new kingpin at Elements Byron Bay, the languid beachfront resort that opened last year, Jones has access to littoral rainforest, creeks and ponds. Here, he can source wild figs, sea succulents and edible flowers among other delicacies. Even so, he’s not resting on his native laurel. At Elements, Jones is intent on showcasing the cream of the region.

The menu at Graze, the resort’s polished restaurant, reads like a culinary map. There are prawns from Ballina, dorper lamb from Bexhill, and burrata from “Luca and Valerio”, the cheesemakers at Byron Bay Mozzarella. Jones, an amiable English native, is lapping it all up. “The produce here is fantastic,” he says, nursing a soy latte on a recent morning. The tropical surrounds probably don’t hurt either. Jones works steps away from an enormous lagoon pool, and a few minutes walk from Belongil Beach. The resort itself is a breezy mix of sustainable thinking and covetable design.

Tree changers, who trade city life for a regional one, attract notice but Jones is from London originally, so his transition has been a dramatic one. For someone with classical French training and a peripatetic existence, Byron Bay is akin to another world. “I’m learning about seasonality in Australia,” he says. In Europe, the chef worked alongside Raymond Blanc and Marco Pierre White, as well as at high-end hotels in Canada and California. Gigs as a private chef followed, for super-wealthy individuals who cannot be named for privacy reasons. Suffice to say Jones has sailed around the Mediterranean and the Caribbean on yachts larger than most homes.

Five years ago, with time off from circumnavigating the globe, he began spending time on the Sunshine Coast. Jones could have walked into any number of roles at top restaurants in Sydney or Melbourne. But, after tasting life in the Northern Rivers and meeting Elements owner, Peggy Flannery, he was compelled to stay. “We don’t have a heavy corporate structure, and the opportunity to chart our own course,” he says. He was touring a visitor around his kitchen, pointing out local delights like freeze-dried finger limes. A one-time pastry chef, Jones was experimenting with fusing the citrus caviar to thin dark chocolate, an accompaniment to a mandarin sorbet.

It’s fitting that Jones has an elemental approach to cooking at Elements. One of the first changes he undertook was revamping the sauces and stocks, a mark of his French leanings. Later this year, the hotel will unveil 100 new rooms, as well as an eco-centre and solar-powered garden. Jones is currently busy selecting what to plant. “We are putting in lots of natives,” he says. At the same time, he is avidly networking with local farmers and fishermen; he aims to focus on produce originating in a 40-km radius. That night at dinner, I sampled a tuna sashimi with jalapeno and ponzu dressing, and a hint of truffle miso. It was at once old-school and new-school, and a zinging showcase of the freshly caught fish. It stopped me in my tracks.