Salt Bae’s restaurant called cops on customer who wouldn’t pay for gold-wrapped steaks
Duane Miranda knew he was in for an expensive night at the Brickell steakhouse where diners pay extra to have an Instagram star cut and hand feed them their meat.
But he never expected to have the cops called when he disputed a $5,000 bill.
Miranda’s not alone. Nusr-Et steakhouse has called the police on customers disputing a massive check at least a dozen times since it opened in November 2017. Outraged diners have taken to posting photos of their eye-popping receipts on social media.
Miranda was stunned after the end of his group’s lavish meal on Dec. 28 when his party of six was presented with a bill of $5,012.28.
His eyes floated down past the $17 truffle croquetas and $15 French fries, down, down past the $28 martinis, $30 burrata and $35 beef tartare.
They landed on the big-ticket items: a pair of $1,000 steaks and a rack of lamb, each wrapped in edible gold.
Miranda almost choked on his $275 Caymus Cabernet.
“I think they’re out to victimize their customers,” Miranda said. “It’s a bait-and-switch.”
Miranda posted about the incident on several online review sites to Facebook and Instagram, where the restaurant chain’s owner, Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe, has amassed internet notoriety.
Gökçe gained internet fame — and millions of followers — by seductively slapping, slicing and salting slabs of beef, earning himself the nickname Salt Bae. But when he opened his Miami restaurant, he failed to endear himself to South Florida by dressing in honor of Fidel Castro on Instagram, serving a lavish meal to Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and allegedly shorting his staff on tips in a case still working its way through the courts.
In his post, Miranda calls Gökçe a “communist-loving piece of crap.” The restaurant says all of its prices are clearly marked on its menus and provided a copy to prove it.
“On the menu, we don’t have any hidden items,” said the general manager in a phone interview, identifying himself only as Oguz. “Everything is clear.”
Miranda said he’s no stranger to four- and five-figure checks. At a boys’ night at night club owner David Grutman’s Komodo, he and his companions ordered four bottles of Opus One at a total cost of $2,400.
The difference, he claims, is that Nusr-Et up-charged them for the gold-wrapped meat without telling them.
The three couples decided to share a pair of the standard tomahawk steaks, Miranda said, priced at $275 each. The dish comes with a tableside flourish where the meat is cut tableside.
On the nights when he’s in town, Gökçe performs the task himself.
This night, Miranda’s group was served what the menu shows as the Golden Tomahawk — a marbled wagyu steak wrapped in edible 24-karat gold leaf. Each is priced at $1,000.
“He’s holding it up, and you could see it shimmering,” Miranda said. “I even asked the waiter, ‘Is that safe to eat?’ and he said yes.”
He thought it was part of a standard, theatrical presentation. After all, Miranda said he often eats at the restaurant Barton G, where they use over-the-top gimmicks, like pop tarts served in a toaster (“but they don’t make you buy the toaster!”).
The couples protested, telling the manager they refused to leave until he adjusted the bill. Then the police arrived.
“I was flabbergasted,” Miranda said.
Miami police have been called to the restaurant at least 12 times when a customer disputed a bill, according to police records obtained by the Miami Herald. Only three times was an actual report filed, and none of the cases have been pursued further. Typical of these confrontations, one Miami police officer responding to a March 2018 incident wrote “conflicting statements of both parties involved.”
Oguz said he had to call the police “only twice” last month. Oguz claimed Miranda’s party threatened to leave without paying its bill.
“I have people with bills of $20,000, $30,000, $40,000. I never had this issue,” he said.
After spending an hour with police, Miranda said his party split the bill to move on, “though maybe we should have just said, ‘We’re not paying them. Take us to jail.”
Miranda took home both foot-long tomahawk bones that come with the steaks, one for his friend’s dog. The other he plans to have tested to see if the residual gold is actually 24 karat.
For now, he has asked American Express to dispute the charge.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 12:44 PM.
