Salt Bae’s London restaurant is already a strange beast, and it hasn’t even opened yet. Nusr-et London, in the Park Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge, has an opening date, a menu including £700 gold-embalmed steaks, and over 30 reviews, but it is yet to serve a single customer a hunk of beef anointed with salt crystals from on high by a man in sunglasses. From 23 September, however, Nusr-et London will open its doors.
Nusret Gökçe, Salt Bae, the living meme, has amassed a huge restaurant empire out of oddly sprinkled sodium chloride, but his debut in the city has been subject to myriad delays. Salt Bae’s London restaurant has been in the works since early 2018, in which time he has been slapped with wage theft lawsuits, obtained mixed reviews of his wet-aged wagyu beef, promised those gold-embalmed steaks, considered doing burgers in London instead, and, ultimately, not opened a restaurant that is now two-and-a-half-years overdue. While the COVID-19 pandemic is to blame in part, it’s hard not to feel that like Salt Bae himself, the myth of his London restaurants is as important as whatever it actually ends up serving: artfully seasoned beef aside.
Follow this stream to find out Salt Bae’s latest London news, its opening menu, and what the reviews say — the reviews that arrive after the doors are actually open.