Pretty Bird.

Pretty Bird

Viet Pham's cooks shake the seasoning onto the Pretty Bird chicken in a set sequence of pats and flourishes, because the salt, sugar and chile in the blend fall through a shaker at different rates and an unshaken blend sends out one sandwich saltier than the last.

Why go

Pham was born in a refugee camp on Pulau Redang off Malaysia after his parents fled Vietnam, grew up in the Chicago suburbs with an uncle who brought home leftovers from Brown's Chicken, and came to cooking through engineering and finance (Salt Lake Magazine). He and Bowman Brown ran Forage downtown, and Food & Wine named them Best New Chefs in 2011. He is plain about what he eats when nobody is watching: If you were going to ask me what my last meal would be, it's not going to be caviar, foie gras, lobster or steak. It's going to be a bucket of KFC original, and a bucket of KFC extra crispy (SLUG).

Forage closed in 2016, and Pham opened Pretty Bird on Regent Street in the autumn of 2017 with a line that ran down the block; Sugar House, Park City and Midvale followed (Gastronomic SLC). Ted Scheffler reckons it was the first Nashville-style hot chicken room in Utah, and it took Pham and his cooks five years to settle the batter and the seasoning (Utah Stories).

The seasoning is where the fine-dining habits show. Each component in the spice blend has a differing particle size, a different weight. The individual ingredients fall at disparate rates. In our earlier days we'd find that as a shaker came to an end, certain elements would outweigh others, Pham told Stuart Melling, so the cooks now apply it in a fixed routine of pats and shakes, the chicken is ordered to a portion size, and it goes into pressure fryers (Gastronomic SLC). The sandwich comes with coleslaw, house pickles and the buttermilk Pretty Bird sauce, and the spice runs from none to Hot Behind (Eater).

Alexis Furkioti-Pham runs the four stores and about a hundred staff while Pham is off filming, and she says the buns are his recipe too (Salt Lake Magazine).

Order this / avoid

• Order: the hot chicken sandwich at medium. Jené Shaw's advice: we recommend medium to get a little bit of heat without missing out on the flavor.7
• Order: a tenders or nuggets combo with a side and a soda, which King priced under twenty dollars in September 2025.5
• Order: crinkle-cut fries with whatever you get, and the Mexican street corn salad if you want the other side.6
• Avoid: Hot Behind on a first visit. Shaw says to be prepared for the consequences.7

What locals & experts say

• Ted Scheffler, Utah Stories: Pretty Bird chicken is complex and layered, with sweet and spicy flavors mingling simultaneously, as well as some sourness from pickles and red cabbage slaw. There are even hints of lemon in the creamy sauce. Pham's fried chicken isn't exactly Nashville hot chicken; it's better.1
• Stuart Melling, Gastronomic SLC: Want the very best chicken sandwich in the state? Want to skip the chains? The answer is simple – head to one of the four Pretty Bird locations.3
• Heather L. King, Utah Stories: Chicken is what happens here, and you can get a hot chicken sandwich, nuggets, or tenders combo with a side and soda for less than $20.5
• Alexis Furkioti-Pham, in Salt Lake Magazine: Most people don't realize how hands-on Viet still is in the kitchen at Pretty Bird. Almost everything is made from scratch; even the buns are Viet's recipe.4

Good to know

• What it costs: a sandwich, tenders or nuggets combo with a side and a soda ran under twenty dollars in September 2025.
• When: lunch and dinner. You order at a screen and wait for your number.
• Booking: none.
• Where: 146 South Regent Street, the original, on the block behind the Eccles Theater downtown. The Sugar House, Midvale and Park City doors are separate rooms, and Park City is the one the Infatuation reviewed.

Verdict

should-visit — Viet Pham held a Food & Wine Best New Chef title at Forage and walked away from tasting menus to spend five years on a chicken sandwich, and Ted Scheffler says the result beats Nashville's own. A combo with a side and a drink came in under twenty dollars in September 2025. Order it medium, and take the fries.