When two celebrities meet, the combined magnetism can be overwhelming.
Such was the case Thursday when it emerged that meme sensation 'Salt Bae,' a Turkish chef whose real name is Nusret Gökçe, met Leonardo DiCaprio, the Daily Mail reports.
The Titanic star was at a table at the Dubai branch of Gökçe's steakhouse chain Nus-ret when Salt Bae did his trademark move, seasoning the actor's meal himself.
Nusr-et's documented the moment with an Instagram picture in which DiCaprio was wearing a grey pageboy cap, checked shirt and navy blazer.
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Advertise with NZME.Standing beside him, the dashing chef was wearing a white T-shirt, baring his musclebound arms as he arched one back to flick some seasoning onto the meat.
Gökçe went viral last month after posting an Instagram video that saw him in a similar white T-shirt, chopping what his caption identified as an 'Ottoman steak.'
His palpable aplomb and captivating good looks - as well as the flourish with which he salted the steak, leaving some seasoning on his arm - lit up social media.
It was that flourish Gökçe mimicked in the photo with DiCaprio, as well as in several Instagram videos he's posted in the intervening time, starring himself.
Each of these videos has gained millions of likes and sees him embark on various stages of meat preparation, always with the salt gimmick at the end.
That gimmick's been screencapped and repurposed for a profusion of memes.
The dish in front of DiCaprio Thursday was one of those featured in an Instagram video posted January, shortly after the one that started all the hubbub.
In that clip, Gökçe methodically pulled ribs from a slab of meat, ultimately plunging the last removed bone straight into the muscle so that it stood upright.
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Advertise with NZME.In an interview the Istanbul-based newspaper the Hürriyet Daily News ran last month, the chef said his way of salting "came automatically".
He said: "I did not do that to show off. It is just my signature. You can think of it a kind of final touch for a painting. It was a final touch to the meat; I was blessing the meat."
