Chef Viet Pham Brings Hot Chicken Craze to Salt Lake City

Chef Viet Pham Pretty Bird
Chef Viet Pham in his kitchen
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If you’ve been keeping your eye on culinary trends, you might have noticed an abundance of Tennessee styled hot chicken concepts crop up over the last ten years. This is likely in no small part to Chef Viet Pham, founder of hot chicken restaurant Pretty Bird. With four locations and counting, Pretty Bird is bringing the heat to Salt Lake City through a perfected hot chicken recipe and culinary excellence.

Pretty Bird chef Viet Pham grew up around food—his parents were caterers and managed a number of catering trucks. As he got older, he found cooking was something he was good at and, most importantly, liked. “Friends would come over and I was always the one cooking, grilling, barbecuing—it’s something I’ve always really enjoyed,” he said.

Pham decided to take his new passion to the next level when he took a break from college to attend culinary school, which he described as a mixed experience. “I wasn’t being challenged and my peers didn’t seem to take school very seriously. The required internship, proved to be an invaluable experience. It’s where I really cut my teeth as a cook,” he said.“I’d never pushed myself harder in anything I’d done up until that point. I knew that being a chef at this higher level was what I wanted.”

Pretty Bird fried chicken sando combo
The Pretty Bird fried chicken sando combo

When an opportunity opened up for him to open a restaurant in Provo, Utah, with a friend, he jumped on it—even though he’d never been to Provo. Although the partnership was tense, it set the stage for Pretty Bird; unsatisfied with the job, “on my free days I would drive to Salt Lake City, explore different spaces, and just fantasize about the kind of restaurant I would open.” It seemed to be kismet when he found a property for rent on Craigslist that the owner wanted to turn into a restaurant. “The next day, I was let go from my truly unsatisfying job, and I signed the lease soon after for my own place. “

The space became Forage, Salt Lake City’s first tasting restaurant. The innovative restaurant gained Pham some media attention; enough to star in a number of Food Network shows, including Extreme Chef and Iron Chef America, and even beat Bobby Flay—twice. Eventually Pham ended up on Food Network Star, where the winners get a chance to host their own show. He was eliminated halfway through the season, but while still in LA he traveled to see a friend who was in the process of trying to convince a chef from Memphis to move out to LA to start a fried chicken restaurant. “This was 2012 and hot chicken wasn’t a thing then. When I tried that chicken, I knew immediately—I’m going to open up a fried chicken restaurant.”

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From 2012-2018 Pham spent his free time perfecting what would become Pretty Bird: “I was driving around town on my days off with two turkey fryers in the back of my Prius, willing to cook fried chicken for anyone that was willing to taste it.” It was worth it—currently in their fifth year, Pretty Bird has gained a lot of local and national momentum, and recently opened their fourth location.

Pham cites a number of things that have made Pretty Bird stand out as a successful restaurant, the first being consistent customer service in multiple locations. The secret? Paying employees fairly. “We’re proud to pay our employees some of the highest wages in the area. They also get PTO and benefits. In return, they take pride in the restaurant and treat it like it’s their own.”

Pham also works closely with local distributors and bakers to provide high quality ingredients, from chicken to bun. But what really makes Pretty Bird unique are the fine dining principles that Pham has integrated from his culinary school days. “We think about the method, the ingredients, the balance, all the things that make fine dining really great,” he said.

Most importantly, where did the name Pretty Bird come from? A surprising source— “I was flipping channels one night,” Pham explained, “and I saw that scene from Dumb and Dumber where the kid in the wheelchair is playing with that headless bird, just calling it ‘Pretty Bird, Pretty Bird.’ And the name just came to me.” In yet another twist of fate, Pham later learned that the scene was filmed just two blocks from Pretty Bird’s first Salt Lake City location.


Learn more about Chef Viet Pham and Pretty Bird at their website or on Instagram.

  • McKee Foodservice
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • Day & Nite
  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef
  • Imperial Dade
  • DAVO Sales Tax
  • BelGioioso Burrata
  • RATIONAL USA
  • Texas Pete
  • RAK Porcelain
  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • Atosa USA