Viet Pham

Pretty Bird

Born in a Malaysian refugee camp in 1979, Chef Viet Pham and his Vietnamese parents immigrated to the U.S. when he was 7 months old. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area with parents who loved food and cooking. His upbringing inspired him to pursue a career in food, and he graduated from the California Culinary Academy in 2002, after first starting his career in software. While attending school, Pham interned at Michelin-starred Fifth Floor Restaurant in San Francisco under award-winning chef Laurent Gras. He then went on to cater local private events before relocating to Provo, Utah where he joined Spark Restaurant and Lounge. He soon opened his first restaurant Forage in Salt Lake City with co-Chef Bowman Brown where it was well-received by the community for its unique concept of featuring ambitious dishes inspired by what Pham found on his forages. The restaurant quickly emerged as the top eatery in the area winning Salt Lake Magazine’s Best New Restaurant in Salt Lake City in 2010, Best Restaurant in Salt Lake City in 2011 and winning Best Chef from the magazine in 2012. Viet also won the award of Food & Wine’s Best New Chef in 2011 and is a 3x James Beard Foundation Award Semifinalist. He now runs Pretty Bird Hot Chicken, a Nashville style hot chicken restaurant in Salt Lake City which was voted Best Fried Chicken in Utah and named as Top 20 of the Best Fried Chicken places in America by USA TODAY.

He has been seen on TV, having competed on the highly- popular Food Network competition cooking show hosted by Guy Fieri Tournament of Champions, as well as the network’s marquee program Extreme Chef in 2012, The Next Food Network Star in 2013, defeated Chef Bobby Flay twice on Iron Chef America, Bobby’s Triple Threat, and also appeared on Food Network’s Kitchen Inferno in 2014.