For Mashed, Charlotte Pointing chronicled Salt Bae’s weird and wonderful career journey to butcher’s apprentice to egotistical restauranteur (to put it very mildly):
Nusret Gökçe has a phenomenal social media presence. If you take a look at his Instagram account, for example, he boasts around 53 million followers. If you simply search for his nickname “Salt Bae” on TikTok, you’ll come across more than 147,000 posts of the steakhouse chef and restaurateur. In most of them, he is wearing sunglasses, sporting his signature ponytail, and performing his signature salt sprinkle (more on that later).
But while Gökçe’s social media presence tends to be fun and entertaining, the reality for his employees seems to be far from it. The businessman has been the subject of multiple allegations and lawsuits, and former workers have accused him of everything from racial discrimination to tip misuse.
His restaurants are notably bad for many reasons, including the fundamental ones (expensive and mediocre food, bad service, and inhumane treatment of staff). And yet he got propped up by celebrities and social media and despite all of these criticisms and downturns, he’s looking to keep it going in Central and South America. Given those regions’ historical association with corruption by the rich and famous at the literal expense of the people, I’m not surprised.