Obituary

Salt Bae was a Turkish chef named Nusret Gökçe whose video of him dramatically sprinkling salt — flicked from his forearm, elbow to fingertips, as the meat sizzled — became the most elegant food performance of the decade. Within days, celebrities ate at his restaurants, and the pose was imitated by everyone from athletes to children's cartoons. He died as a meme in 2017, when the move became so ubiquitous it stopped being a signature and became a cliché — and when Nusret, leaning all the way in, became a global brand instead of a meme. He went from seasoning meat to seasoning the world. The salt still falls somewhere.

Born

January 2017

Died

Late 2017

Cause of death

Died of an over-salting

Last sighting

A steakhouse in New York, 2018

Resting place

Section E, Row 6

Category

person