Nusret Gökçe (Turkish: [nusˈɾet ɟœcˈtʃe]; born August 9, 1983), better known as Salt Bae, is a Turkish butcher, chef, and restaurateur. Gökçe's technique for preparing and seasoning meat became an internet meme in January 2017. He founded Nusr-Et, a chain of luxury steak houses. As of 2021^[update], Nusr-Et has branches in Turkey, Greece, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The name of the restaurant chain comes from his own name and et, which means "meat" in Turkish.

Nusret Gökçe was born in Paşalı [tr], a village in Şenkaya district of Erzurum Province, to a Kurdish family. His father, Faik, was a mineworker. The family's finances forced him to leave school in the sixth grade (aged 11–12) to work as a butcher's apprentice in the Kadıköy district of Istanbul.

Gökçe visited several countries, including Argentina and the United States, between 2007 and 2010, where he worked in local restaurants for free in order to gain experience as a cook and a restaurateur. After his return to Turkey, Gökçe opened his first restaurant in Istanbul in 2010, and later opened a Dubai restaurant in 2014.

In January 2017, Gökçe became more widely known as Salt Bae through a series of viral internet videos and memes that show him "suavely" cutting meat and sprinkling salt, such as "Ottoman Steak", posted on his restaurant's Twitter account. The post was viewed over 16 million times on Instagram, after which he was dubbed "Salt Bae" due to his peculiar way of sprinkling salt: dropping it from his fingertips to his forearm, and then onto the dish. Due to the viral exposure gained from this post, Gökçe's profile has expanded enormously and he has served many celebrities and politicians from around the world.

Despite the international fame, early professional reviews in 2018 of his New York City steakhouse were generally negative. The New York Post's Steve Cuozzo called the restaurant "Public Rip-off No. 1" and Joshua David Stein writing in GQ called the steak mundane and the hamburgers overcooked. Other critics described the dishes as, "as over-salted as they are overpriced", the "meat was tough with globs of fat and gristle, and severely lacking in flavor", and that "finishing a meal there constitutes some kind of personal victory over your own body and instincts and mouth". Other reviewers described the dining experience as "overpriced".

The spectacle with which Gökçe performed his tableside preparations, however, garnered a more positive reception. Eater's Robert Sietsema states, "If you are intent on judging New York's new branch of Nusr-Et only as a steakhouse, you'll probably be disappointed ... If, on the other hand, you appraise the place as dinner theater, you will find it satisfying—but only if Salt Bae is in the house". Gökçe's Manhattan burger bar, once dubbed New York's worst restaurant, closed in 2023, three years after opening.

In December 2017, Gökçe was criticized for a photo taken in 2016—in which he posed in front of, and mimicked, a photo of former Cuban president Fidel Castro.

A video of September 2018, showing Gökçe serving food to the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro at an Istanbul restaurant, was criticised because of food shortages in Venezuela. Protests erupted at his Miami restaurant as a result.^{[citation needed]}