Salt Bae was cool for about a minute in terms of the internet, but his credibility has slowly declined until it bottomed out with the embarrassing episode of him posing with the World Cup on the pitch after that epic final between Argentina and France back in December.
Featured Image VIA
Now it turns out that he’s even more of a fraud that we thought after a former employee of his restaurant claimed that the celebrity chef would regularly tell his workers to go out the front and pretend to be customer in a queue in order to build up the hype for the place. He’s also facing seven lawsuits in two different cities from former employees for issues stemming from a ‘testosterone saturated culture of fear’ and several other workplace violations.
Here’s a few of the criticisms that have been levelled at the chef:
It might look like gold from the outside but it’s shxt from the inside.
Salt Bae is a dictator.
He’s a very uncomfortable man to be around.
It was like The Hunger Games on some shifts as staff didn’t know whether they would be fired before their shift was over.
You had to be ready to be fired when you were working there.
Two months after opening day only about half the staff was still working at the restaurant.
One staff member was fired for breaking a glass and Salt Bae got rid of another because he didn’t like his shirt.
He would also fall asleep on tables and we weren’t allowed to go home until he woke up.
Jesus that sounds like one of the worst ever episodes of ‘Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares’ ever doesn’t it, just on a much larger scale in a much more expensive restaurant. It’s also really weird because even though he seemed like a bit of a suck up knob, Salt Bae also came across like a friendly guy and not an abusive, disgusting human being.
The whole situation just reeks of him doing everything he can to be famous by cutting as many corners as possible which does fit in with his general vibe, although it must be said it seems like a lot of restaurants operate highly stressful, toxic workplaces. This does seem like the most extreme version of that idea though. Hopefully these lawsuits ruin the guy and he can finally go away.
For more of the same, check out Salt Bae sharing a £140,000 bill from his Abu Dhabi restaurant. So cool.