Two former employees of a Manhattan steakhouse owned by famed Turkish chef Nusr-et Gökçe — better known as “Salt Bae” — have each filed $500,000 lawsuits claiming that Turkish workers were treated better at the restaurant than they were because they’re Hispanic.
Waiter Angelo Maher and bartender Elizabeth Cruz said they were discriminated against working at Nusr-et Steakhouse New York because they weren’t Turkish, according to lawsuits filed against the chef’s company last week in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Maher — a Peruvian who started working there in 2017 — claims he was regularly put in less lucrative sections of the restaurant than Turkish employees were and that they were protected by management even if they had poor performance or misconduct.
Maher also said in his suit that he — and other non-Turkish workers — were kept in the dark about how they paid out the tip pool at the restaurant.
Maher confronted a manager about it and was told “Stop with this tip-pool stuff cause I’m telling you, you are on your final warning, just stay neutral,” the suit alleges.
The waiter said he was forced to forgo tips when he served Gökçe’s celebrity friends, including rapper French Montana.
And, when Maher was asked by guests whether the steakhouse’s meat was Halal — food permitted under the Islamic religion — he claims he was told to lie to guests telling them that it was, “despite the fact that this claim was not true,” according to the court documents.
Maher also says he had to pay out of pocket to cover his mistakes on guests’ orders, while Turkish employees didn’t, the filing claims.
Maher raised his concerns over the alleged discrimination to Human Resources in September 2019 but was retaliated against after, the suit claims.
Following the complaint, Maher said he would be sent home early on his shifts and was given less lucrative sections of the restaurant to serve in and that he was twice manhandled by Turkish employees, including once being slapped by his manager, the filing alleges.
Maher was fired in March 2020 and when the eatery opened back up after the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic that he wasn’t rehired like other employees were, the suit claims.
In a separate suit, Cruz — whose family background is Dominican — says she was hired in April 2019 and soon after was sexualized in a way that Turkish women workers and other male employees weren’t.
In particular, Cruz came in with the normal uniform but was told to go home and change into “a short skirt, high-heels and a revealing top,” the filing alleges.
The manager told her “My wife is Dominican, I know how you women are” and that “was suggesting that Ms. Cruz was sexually promiscuous due to her heritage,” the suit charges.
A few weeks later, Cruz asked the manager if she could go back to wearing the standard uniform because she felt degraded and was physically uncomfortable in the other one. She was fired a few days later, the filing claims.
A lawyer for Gökçe’s company did not immediately return requests for comment and a message left at the restaurant was not immediately returned.
Gökçe has been named in other suits including ones alleging he stiffed workers on tips and overtime pay. He was also named in a $5 million copyright infringement lawsuit for allegedly using an image from a commissioned artwork on marketing materials worldwide without paying for the additional uses.
The first two were settled while the copyright infringement suit is still pending.
