Salt Bae to leave London restaurant just six weeks after opening

Salt Bae is set to leave his notoriously expensive London restaurant on Sunday just six weeks after he opened the establishment in Knightsbridge.

The social media icon and the living meme is packing his bags and moving to the warmer climate of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where he will open up his 28th restaurant.

Salt Bae, real name Nusret Gökçe, recently confirmed the news on his Instagram Stories. Posting a picture of himself next to an unnamed woman, he wrote: “Sunday is my last day in Lovely London. I want to see you beautiful people before I go.”

Salt Bae/ Instagram

The celebrity chef’s restaurant, which mostly serves very pricey cuts of meat has turned lots of heads since arriving in the UK, mostly for some of the eye-watering bills that patrons were racking up.

Things started when a bill was leaked on social media and people noticed that a Red Bull drink cost £11 and steaks were around £630.

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Celebrity and socialite Gemma Collins then admitted that she ‘felt sick’ after paying more than £1000 for Salt Bae’s gold leaf tomahawk steak. Meanwhile, another diner managed to spend a staggering £37,000 in the restaurant.

It’s not all been smooth sailing for the Turkish chef though. The restaurant has been flooded with numerous negative reviews online from unhappy patrons and the venue was also hit by a stunt from food critic Jay Rayner who ate a donor kebab on the street directly outside.

It was also hit with accusations of underpaying its staff after people noticed that an advert for a Chef de Partie at the restaurant was only paying £12-£13.50 an hour, which was roughly the cost of mashed potato on the extortionate restaurant.

Still, Salt Bae didn’t seem worried in the slightest by the negativity and people have continued to flock to the restaurant to presumably drain their bank accounts or meet the man himself.

Whether that will continue now that he is jetting off for the Middle East remains to be seen. London’s loss is truly Saudi Arabia’s gain.