Critics have declared Salt Bae’s newest creation is not worth its salt!
Last month, viral Turkish butcher Nusret “Salt Bae” Gökçe opened a burger restaurant in New York City and the reviews are now in.
Several outlets, including BuzzFeed, Gothamist, Guest of a Guest and Eater have slammed the eatery — located near Union Square — for being “tasteless” and “terrible.”
A rep for Gökçe did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment about the negative reviews.
In a review entitled “Salt Bae Burger Is the Worst Restaurant in NYC Right Now,” the Gothamist’s Scott Lynch, went as far as comparing the resturant’s food offerings to hospital food.
Describing the ambiance of the eatery, he wrote: “When you enter, you enter a Salt Bae theme park — unsurprisingly, there are images everywhere of Gökçe doing his Salt Bae thing, and if he’s around, he’ll be more than happy to pose for however many pictures you want to take.”
Following a similar theme, Guest of a Guest writer Stephanie Maida shared the resturant’s menu under the headline “The Absolute Worst Restaurant in New York Right Now”.
In a review posted on Monday, BuzzFeed’s Senior Culture writer Scaachi Koul did not call the eatery the worst like her fellow food critics but did not give it anything close to praise.
Koul wrote that she tried the Saltbae Baklava Shake, the Saltbae Burger, the Veggie Burger, the Wet Burger and the restaurant’s truffle fries — all of which she said was bland.
The Wet Burger’s patty for example, “smells strongly of cumin but curiously tastes like absolutely nothing. If you squeeze it, it oozes greasy tears,” Koul added.
In their joint review, Eater critics Robert Sietsema and Ryan Sutton also expressed their disappointment.
“I expected it to be as interesting as Salt Bae’s steakhouse was when it opened two years ago, but it wasn’t. It had all the charm of an airplane hanger,” Sietsema explained, adding “I hated the steakhouse, but it was interesting to go to.”
“I thought it was mostly terrible,” Sutton wrote. “Basically the whole place is like a combination of Black Tap. At Salt Bae, you have these elaborate and expensive shakes — $99 for a ‘golden shake’ — and then you have these crazy, high-priced burgers, also up to $100. But Black Tap actually serves pretty decent burgers and regular shakes, so Salt Bae is like the worst, most ‘grammable parts of Black Tap.”
In addition to Salt Bae Burger, Gökçe owns the Nusr-Et steakhouse chain, which Buzzfeed slammed as “expensive and apparently terrible.”
The first steakhouse location is in Miami and he later opened a second one in New York City.
The viral sensation first caught people’s attention in 2017 when a video of him sprinkling salt like a goddess went viral, and he’s since salted the plates of Hollywood’s biggest stars. He has also shown off his jaw-dropping skills meat-slicing skills on Instagram for his 26 million followers.
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