Salt Bae's golden steak no longer appeals to London: £5 million hole and venue closures

For years, even on the greyest and coldest November evenings, along Knightsbridge in London, you could always see a queue outside a restaurant under the Park Tower Hotel, two circular towers in the most expensive area of the city: it is the Nusr-Et restaurant, the temple of meat, one of the many in the chain opened by the celebrity Salt Bae, the Turkish chef who became famous for his viral videos where he wore sunglasses in the kitchen and seasoned meat with salt while doing dances and choreographies.

Il balletto funzionava: nel ristorante di Londra, il piatto principale, la Gold Tomahawk, una bistecca ricoperta di foglie d’oro (commestibili), che veniva servita al costo di 1.450 sterline (1.600 Euro) era il più gettonato: il piatto di carne più caro al mondo era pure diventato una sorta di moda, tra chi se lo poteva permettere. Sui social media faceva “figo” postare foto del conto di Salt BAe: una cena tra amici costava tranquillamente più di 10mila sterline. Tutto sembrava giocare a favore di Salt Bae: il locale londinese non solo è nel quartiere ormai abitato solo dai ricconi arabi, che amano esibire il loro status sociale, ma è anche di fronte al Mandarin Oriental, uno degli alberghi più lussuosi della città, a due passi da Harrods, in un crocevia di gente benestante.

The myth of Salt Bae seems to be waning, the age of the steakhouse nabobs is coming to an end. This week, reports emerged in the British press that the steakhouse, which opened in 2021, posted a£5.4m loss last year. Already in 2023, there were some ominous signs: Nusr-Et London's turnover had plummeted by 30% and in 2024 things were evidently even worse. Salt Bae's crisis is global: five venues have closed internationally, while in the US, the company has revalued its US operations by £6.6m, justifying them in the balance sheet under 'extraordinary expenses'.

Salt Bae's decline can also be seen in the menu: recently, also in London, Nusr Et had launched a £39 fixed-price lunch. It was meant to be a bargain, but in an establishment that once served golden steaks and cappuccino for £50, it sounds like a requiem mass. Moreover, the reviews of the fixed menu are not favourable either.

The loss of the London restaurant, however, goes beyond the chef's 'speculative bubble' and encompasses a broader phenomenon: Nusr-Et is a restaurant for the rich, but in the British capital the rich are fewer and fewer, they are fleeing the taxes of the Labour government. Invaded by a 'hunt for the rich', believed to be the source of all the world's ills, the Starmer government has launched into an ideological-moralist crusade that is severely punishing the rich, most of whom, being foreigners, are fleeing elsewhere (Dubai and Milan in the lead): in 2024 12,000 ultra-rich residents left London. The first to suffer are the five-star restaurants.