Salt Bae Still Hasn't Opened His Long-Awaited London Restaurant

In the latest bit of negative news concerning Salt Bae, the salt-sprinkling leader of a steakhouse chain, the opening date of his London restaurant Nusr-Et remains uncertain. Currently, as Eater reports, this is due to the fact that Nusret Gökçe, the real name of Salt Bae, has been spending his time on the Greek party island Mykonos doing pull-ups while holding a stone between his feet and generally hanging out.

To be fair, Eater points out that Salt Bae had said through Instagram that he would visit Mykonos before heading to London. And he does own a restaurant on the island, so surely the delay is within reasonable bounds. 

Well, on May 3, GQ wrote that Nusr-Et would debut in London with its gold-covered steaks on May 17. So, Salt Bae's restaurant hold up has lasted a considerable time. In September 2020, The US Sun noted that there were rumors of Salt Bae adding a London-based restaurant to his repertoire, but that such a project appeared to have been delayed. Moreover, preemptive reviews registering excitement for the London restaurant appeared on Square Meal as early as 2019. This is not, then, a situation of unforeseen events piling upon each other but actually part of a pattern with Nusr-Et openings.

Londoners who really want to eat one of Salt Bae's expensive steaks can rest assured that the establishment will open. After all, a very similar pattern occurred when Salt Bae attempted to open Nusr-Et in Dallas. The restaurant finally opened on March 4, but, as Escape Hatch Dallas notes in their details for the event, the opening occurred a year-and-a-half after the initial opening date. Announced dates for the opening included September 2020 and the end of February 2021, but as the event summarized "accuracy is not among Nusr-Et's strengths."

Still, it did open. Admittedly, leading up to this date, the restaurant had to deal with $933,000 in unpaid bills, as the construction team working on the building had alleged in a lawsuit. Eater also notes that this lawsuit occurred at the time when a Boston location closed for failure to acquire the correct permits and Miami and New York locations were found to have indulged in tip pools. It seems that while Salt Bae is an excellent purveyor of steak and manager of his social media, the minutiae of large-scale business running fails to interest him.