One of Salt Bae’s restaurants got shut down for violating COVID rules

Where Salt Bae opens, meat and trouble follow.

Known for the signature salt sprinkle made famous on Instagram, selling $1,000 gold-wrapped steaks and kowtowing to dictators, Turkish restaurateur Nusret Gökçe had his Boston restaurant shut down Saturday, according to the Boston Globe.

The city’s Licensing Board and Inspectional Services Department ordered Nusr-Et Boston closed for repeatedly failing to follow COVID-19 safety standards, the Globe reported.

Now here in Miami “following COVID-19 safety standards” basically translates to “do whatever, take as many selfies as you want, WOOOOOT.” But Boston is not playing.

Nusr-Et Boston had just opened on Sept. 18 in the Bay Village neighborhood, the Globe wrote. Amid reports that customers weren’t wearing masks or social distancing, the licensing board shut it down and suspended its alcoholic beverage license “due to the existing and imminent threat to public health and public safety,” the board said.

Gökçe, by the way, is not the most popular man in Miami, first angering the community in 2017 when a photo appeared on social media of the chef dressed up like Fidel Castro. Venezuelan residents also organized a protest outside his Brickell steakhouse after video surfaced of him at his Istanbul restaurant serving Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

Nusr-Et Steakhouse in Miami is still open. There are more than a dozen of the restaurants around the world in spots like Dubai, Ankara, Mykonos and Doha. Earlier this year he opened Salt Bae Burger in New York City, which Gothamist called “the worst restaurant in NYC right now.”