Is it true that the famous chef Nusret Goekce banned Russians from entering his restaurant?

In May 2023, reports spread across the Internet that in the restaurant of a Turkish chef, from a popular meme, an announcement appeared “For Russians, entry is prohibited.” We found out whether such a restriction actually applies in the establishment.

Publications about the ban began to spread en masse in the late afternoon of May 19, 2023. In some Telegram channels it was saidthat the news was shared by their subscribers, with whom on holiday in Turkey happened unpleasant situation. According to them, during a visit to the restaurant of the Nusr-Et chain, which belongs to Goekce, Russian citizens were not allowed inside, pointing out the new rule of the establishment. The viral photo shows reception desks, one of which depicts Nusret himself (in some posts he is mistakenly called “Nurset”) in its signature pose, the restaurant logo and the inscription in English: “No Russian visitors” (“No Russian visitors” or literally “No Russian visitors”). The owner allegedly motivated this decision by supporting the pro-Western presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, which is why Russian citizens “became unwelcome in some places in Turkey.” At the same time, it is sometimes specified that Nusret himself is an innovation didn't comment and what's the speech coming only about his establishment in Istanbul, namely Nusr-Et Steakhouse Etiler.

Telegram channels such as “Russophobic rule” spoke about the “Russophobic rule”Live broadcast"(713,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Voblya (205,000), "Uncle Slava"(159,000), "First People's"(152,000), "Operation Z"(149,000), "Ostashko! Important" (118,000), "Federation"(114,000), "What happened?"(106,000), "From the scene"(100,000), "Ukraine.ru"(90,000), "Breaking news"(95,000), "Special Operation Z"(90,000), "Petya the First" (72,000), "KD 18+"(70,000), 4chan (61,000), 360tv (35,000), "Summary"(19,000), Donbass devushka (18,000), Pravda.ru (15,000) and "Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation"(12,000). In "VKontakte"The news about the ban was shared by many verified publics, including "TV channel Tsargrad" (31,000), "NTV"(22,000), Ura.ru (29,000) and "Cube Media"(3000). In addition, similar publications can be found on Twitter (examples here, here And here), Facebook* (here And here) and some media: "Economy today", "People's news" And "Pravda.ru"

Owner of the Turkish steakhouse chain Nusret Goekce received gained worldwide fame in January 2017 when a video of him cutting meat in a special way and sprinkling it with salt went viral. Nusret received the nickname Salt Bae on the Internet and became a living meme, and at the time of writing this text on his instagram* more than 53 million people have subscribed. Restaurateur often falls into scandals, about which they write as Turkish, so foreign The media, however, in the foreign press “Verified”, it was not possible to find any mention of the ban on serving Russians in Goekce’s establishment, which seems strange, given the resonant nature of the news story and the level of press attention to the chef’s person. There are also no videos or photos on social networks where the prohibitory inscription could be seen from other angles. In addition, if the ban is aimed only at Russians, then it is strange that the phrase is not duplicated in Russian.

According to the official Nusr-Et website, the network totals There are 22 locations in different countries, including the USA, UK, Greece and others, but news of the ban appeared only from visitors to one establishment in Turkey, although the chef there owns nine restaurants, six of which are in Istanbul. It seems logical that the policy of not serving Russians would be extended to all 22 establishments, but there have been no such reports from other locations.

However, the publications still indicate the wrong name of the restaurant. We compared the interior in the viral photo with numerous pictures from Nusr-Et Steakhouse Etiler, and the situation there is completely different. Actually in the picture captured reception desks in Nusr-Et Steakhouse Sandal Bedesteni (also in Istanbul), and, according to the photos we found, the inscriptions should be placed on special signs, and not on the stands themselves, as shown in the viral image.

In most publications, the viral photo contains the watermark of the Telegram channel “Rybar” (354,000 views), where the photo posted May 19 at 23:00 Moscow time. However, the earliest post that was tracked by "Verified" appeared three hours earlier in Tarik_news (6000). There the photo was accompanied by the following text: “They write to us: “This is just crap. My husband and I went on vacation to Turkey, we decided to go to a really good restaurant. We came to Nusr-Et and saw THIS “Russians are not allowed!” There, of course, we were indignant, asked what was happening, we behave decently, we just came for dinner. They said that they support the ideology of the second candidate in the elections, this one with a “fucking name,” and now they have restricted entry to Russian clients. It’s simple. rudeness and undisguised Russophobia, fuck them” (spelling and punctuation preserved. - Editor’s note). Earlier, “Verified” repeatedly caught the Tarik_news channel distributing fake ones. photo And video, while some of the fake photographs were also allegedly sent subscribers.

The very next day, May 20, Life edition published a refutation according to which Nusret did not prohibit Russians from visiting his establishment. They reported that the restaurateur posted a story on his Instagram, where he wrote the phrase “fake news” in Russian and English against the background of a viral photo. A screenshot of the publication is also attached to the Life material. Since earlier edition more than once participated in replicating fakes, it is difficult to consider it a fairly reliable source, however, we found information about this story in three Telegram channels, where screenshots were taken at different times, and profiles in different languages ​​are visible on them: Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian. At the same time, in one of the channels they even brought link on Nusret's story, although it is no longer available, and her saved copy Unfortunately, it does not work in the web archive, so checking it is not possible.

Note that some large Telegram channels supplemented the original posts, clarifying that Nusret denied the news - among them the same “Rybar”, “Ax 18+"(1.7 million views) and "Mousetrap"(220,000). However, it is unknown how many people saw the posts before the update. And, for example, the host of “Soloviev Live” Sergei Karnaukhov simply deleted your post (12,000) without any refutation and/or apology.

*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: @nusr_et (Instagram)

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

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