Nusret Gökçe Saltbae — watch collection

About Nusret Gökçe Saltbae’s watch collection

Nusret Gökçe, better known by his self-coined persona Salt Bae, is a Turkish chef and entrepreneur who parlayed a single viral video into one of the most recognizable personal brands in the restaurant industry. Born in Erzurum, Turkey, he worked his way through kitchen jobs before opening his first Nusr-Et steakhouse in Istanbul in 2010. The now-famous footage of him slicing and seasoning beef — that slow-motion salt cascade down his forearm — was posted in January 2017 and accumulated hundreds of millions of views within days. He has since expanded Nusr-Et into a global chain with locations across Dubai, London, New York, Miami, and beyond, with covers typically priced at the very high end of the steakhouse market. His restaurants have attracted a steady stream of celebrities, athletes, and heads of state, keeping his profile consistently elevated well beyond the initial viral moment.

On the watch front, the Nusret Gökçe Saltbae watch collection currently runs to 12 documented sightings in our database, and Patek Philippe is the brand that defines his wrist. His most closely examined piece is a vintage Patek Philippe Nautilus reference 3700 in 18K yellow gold with a black dial, dating to approximately 1980. The ref. 3700 is the original Nautilus — the Gerald Genta-designed sports watch introduced in 1976 that effectively created the category of the luxury integrated-bracelet watch. Finding one in yellow gold from that era places it among the more uncommon early Nautilus configurations, since stainless steel dominated first-generation production. That Gökçe gravitates toward this particular reference rather than a more recent or more obvious piece suggests his engagement with watches goes beyond surface-level brand recognition.

What makes the collection worth tracking is the contrast it sets up with his public image. The theatrics of the restaurant floor and the social media persona are calibrated for maximum visibility, yet the watch choices lean toward pieces that reward knowledge rather than casual observation. A 1980 Nautilus in yellow gold is not a watch that announces itself loudly to a general audience — it is a watch that lands differently once you understand the reference. With 12 spotted pieces and counting, there is clearly more to catalogue here, and we expect further sightings to round out a collection that appears to have genuine depth behind it.