“Salt Bae” Closes Popular Restaurant After Heavy Criticism

He is frequented by celebrities in sports, entertainment and show business. Now the restaurant “Salt Bay” has to close the well-known branch.

“Make a common hand gesture,” says moderator Robert Lempke on the quiz show “What Am I?” Once above. The older among us may remember. Nasred Kokse is also known for such a typical hand gesture. Few people know him by his real name, but by his nickname “Salt Bay”.

According to US media reports, the restaurant has now had to close one of its restaurants. Not just any project, but the most valuable project of all: the “Salt Bay Burger” restaurant in Manhattan, where a meatball decorated with gold leaves on a bun costs 100 US dollars.

His failure in the land of limitless opportunity must hurt him. Nusret Gökçe is a self-made billionaire. He built a meat empire on the wrist. Born in Turkey, the 39-year-old once touted the traditional salting of meat, essential to many gourmet dishes, as a distinctive feature of his steakhouses. Raising his hand and bending his arm at an exaggerated angle, the trained butcher sprinkled spices on the meat and promoted himself with this gesture on social media. It has become a brand known all over the world.

Although the salt shaker number may seem a little too thick for some tastes, the effect is not long in coming. “Salt Bae” has 52.3 million followers on Instagram alone. Video platform TikTok has another 15.4 million.

Then, the sizzling PR pro came up with the brilliant idea of ​​decorating his giant tomahawk steaks with gold leaf and selling them wholesale at inflated prices. This, in turn, attracted the type of celebrity reliably drawn to places where everything is too beautiful, too big, and anyway too expensive: soccer stars.

At least, the meat/celebrity/moon price business model for coke is certainly successful and attractive, as former Bayern star Franck Ribery and his entourage have been guests at “Salt Base” restaurants for an astronomical bill. Influencers and the super rich. At some point they all came: Neymar, Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or martial arts superstar Conor McGregor.

This concept doesn’t just pay off financially. Meanwhile, Gökçe, who always wears sunglasses while cooking, has become famous himself. He walks the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, owns 18 restaurants in the US and the Middle East and has an estimated net worth of around $50 million.

Food doesn’t seem to be going so well. The closing of the Manhattan burger joint followed heavy criticism in a city where food is highly regarded.

The “Salt Bae Burger” was voted the worst burger in New York three years ago. Critics repeatedly joked that luxury gastronomy could not meet the standards of the local palate. One wrote that the restaurant had the charm of an “aircraft hangar,” while another compared what came from the “Salt Bay” kitchen to “hospital food.”

One food critic noted that even the menu comes in a sort of metal frame that resembles a tombstone and “overtly proclaims the death of all pleasures” when it comes to food. The portions are small anyway, but you can only eat one bite of it.

The bad reviews obviously had an effect, because sometimes the guests did not feel like the culinary treasures of the self-proclaimed meat king “Salt Bay”. So the star restaurateur makes another iconic hand gesture: He turns the key to the door and closes his restaurant in New York.