Words: Harry Shukman
“Empires,” says the Canadian professor Gad Saad, “implode from within due to their own excesses”. So it went with the fall of Rome, and so it could with the mighty empire of Salt Bae, the Turkish meat despot who rules over a landmass so large the sun never sets on it. Nusret Gökçe, whose round sunglasses and camp salt sprinkling technique catapulted him to viral success in 2017, now owns 20 branches of his Nusr-Et steak houses and burger restaurants in the US, the UK, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Greece, and his native Turkey.
But, as Gökçe, 40, is perhaps learning, his supply lines have been stretched too thin, and it is beginning to threaten the stability of his sirloin empire. Salt Bae Burger, a Park Avenue outlet that opened in 2020, has recently shut amid widespread criticism. It offered luxe fare — $100 milkshakes, $100 burgers wrapped in gold leaf — but was derided by restaurant reviewers who said the spot had “all the charm of an airplane hangar”. The New York Post, the voice of the city, said the restaurant was “Public Rip-off No 1”. Things had gone even worse in Boston, where a couple of years before, Gökçe had opened and closed a restaurant within a week due to health code violations.
Falling out of love with Salt Bae: the closure of his Manhattan joint was met with jubilation by New Yorkers
Perhaps customers have grown weary of Salt Bae’s schtick, which is to charge nauseating amounts of money for bang-average meat smothered in gold: a famously inert and tasteless metal. When Nusr-Et opened in Knightsbridge in 2021, Londoners were aghast as dinner bills emerged: one especially punchy meal reported in the press cost £37,000, with a service charge alone of £5,000 (the vintage bottle of 1996 Petrus, at £9,000, probably didn’t help to keep down costs). This would be different were it actually good, but by most accounts Nusr-Et serves what one critic described as “hospital food” at exorbitant prices.
In a sign of the times, the London branch of Nusr-Et last month had to reduce the cost of its most expensive dishes amid a customer backlash. It could be that the Salt Bae slowdown reflects wider trends in the luxury world. The post-pandemic boom of high-end purchasing has reached its peak, according to market experts. “The global mood is not one of revenge buying like we saw in 2021 and 2022,” said Jean-Jacques Guiony, chief financial officer of the world’s biggest luxury company, LVMH. Just as superyachts and Birkin bags are no longer selling at the same frenetic post-Covid pace, are diners becoming less excited by wagyu tenderloin that costs as much as their monthly mortgage payments?
There is also something a little grating about Gökçe himself. A person is judged by the company they keep, and he has a reputation for hosting some rather insalubrious diners at his restaurants. There have been sleazy Hollywood stars and questionable southeast Asian security ministers, but the most famous rogue has undoubtedly been the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro (average monthly salary of his citizens: £20; cost of a Salt Bae striploin steak covered in gold: £1,350). Not a great look.
This photo, taken when Salt Bae yanked the world cup trophy from the hands of the winning players, has prompted a lot of customers to question their love of Salt Bae
But even worse was Gökçe’s appearance at the men’s world cup final last year, when he appeared on the pitch after Argentina’s win over France to take selfies with captain Lionel Messi, grabbing his arm, biting into medals — even yanking the trophy out of the hands of winning players to pose with it. “This man deserves jail time,” said one observer. Followers of Salt Bae on social media will already be familiar with his humility, having seen clips like the one where he is working out shirtless, and an unseen cameraman says: “Mr Nusret, you are very strong.” His reply? “I know.”
When culinary historians of the future try to understand the Salt Bae phenomenon — and what led customers, in the early 21st century to happily pay over the odds for gold-wrapped meats — they may try to identify the peak of his success, and where it all began going wrong. This closure in Manhattan seems like the point at which the best days of Salt Bae are behind him, especially given how glad New Yorkers were to see the end of his restaurant. Their response to its opening? One disgruntled diner was quoted in the press as saying: “This is an insult to humanity”. Yikes.
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