Nusret Gökçe Turkish Chef From Erzurum

Early life

Nusret Gökçe was born on 9 August 1983 in the village of Paşalı, in the Şenkaya district of Erzurum Province, Turkey. His father, Faik, worked in a mine. Because of the family's finances he left school in the sixth grade and went to Istanbul to work as an apprentice to a butcher in the Kadıköy district.

Career

Between 2007 and 2010 Gökçe travelled to several countries, among them Argentina and the United States. He worked in local restaurants without pay to learn the trade of cook and restaurant owner. After he came back to Turkey he opened his first restaurant in Istanbul in 2010, and a restaurant in Dubai followed in 2014. He is described in records as both a chef and a businessperson, and he is also known as a butcher and restaurateur.

His public profile changed in January 2017, when videos posted on his restaurant's social media accounts showed him cutting meat and then sprinkling salt in a distinctive way: dropping it from his fingertips onto his forearm and then onto the dish. One post, featuring a dish called Ottoman Steak, was viewed more than 16 million times on Instagram, and the nickname "Salt Bae" spread widely as an internet meme. After that he served many well-known people from around the world at his restaurants. His chain of steak houses, Nusr-Et, takes its name from his own first name and the Turkish word for meat, et. By 2021 it had branches in Turkey, Greece, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Reviews of his restaurants have been mixed. Critics who wrote about the New York steak house in 2018 were generally negative about the food and the prices, while others said the tableside performance was the main attraction and was best judged as dinner theatre. A burger restaurant he opened in Manhattan closed in 2023, three years after it started trading. In late September 2020 public health officials ordered his Boston restaurant to close a few days after opening because of breaches of COVID-19 safety rules, and it reopened in early October. In October 2021 a bill of 37,000 pounds for a meal at one of his British restaurants drew attention in the press there. Reports in 2024 said the Knightsbridge restaurant in London had seen turnover of 13.6 million pounds in 2022 fall to 9.3 million pounds in the following accounts, with profits down from 3.3 million to 2.2 million.

In 2019 he bought the Park Hyatt Istanbul in the Maçka Palas building, reported at 50 million euros, opened a Nusr-Et steak house there and made his home in the building.

There have been legal and public disputes. In November 2019 four former employees of the New York restaurant accused him of taking a share of staff tips; the case was settled with a payment of 230,000 dollars to them, and he said he had dismissed them over their performance. In 2023 a news investigation reported similar allegations from former staff at the London restaurant. Public criticism has also followed several of his appearances: a 2016 photograph in which he compared himself to Fidel Castro, a 2018 video of him serving the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and his behaviour on the pitch after the December 2022 World Cup final, when he handled the trophy and held players' medals. FIFA opened an investigation into his conduct after the match.

Public roles

Gökçe is involved in charitable work in Erzurum, his home province. He has said on Instagram that he paid for a school, a library, a guest house, a mosque, an English teaching centre and a computer laboratory there.

Recognition

Gökçe's recognition is mainly public rather than through awards; none are on record. His Instagram account had about 50 million followers in October 2026.