Chef Viet Pham of Pretty Bird is indulging in his latest gastronomic expansion.
The James Beard Award-nominated chef and Bay Area local is opening a restaurant within the newly transformed The Cinemas Theater, an upscale cinema in the former iPic Theaters location. The restaurant will mark Pham’s latest expansion into Los Angeles – and a distinct concept from his Utah-based restaurant Pretty Bird. Pham, who’s made several appearances on the Food Network and won against the famed Chef Bobby Flay on “Beat Bobby Flay,” has built a national profile around his bold, epicurean take on fried chicken.
Ahead of the Westwood restaurant’s opening, Pham spoke with the Daily Bruin’s Parsa Arshi about his culinary journey, his Vietnamese American heritage, his approach to cooking and his thoughts on leadership.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Daily Bruin: What made you decide that becoming a chef was the path for you?
Viet Pham: I often tell people I wish I had this romantic upbringing where I spent endless hours in the kitchen, watching my grandmother or my mom cook. But for me, a lot of cooking was out of necessity. At an early age, my parents taught us to boil water, make top ramen because my dad worked the graveyard shift, which meant when we were home, he was really tired, and my mom worked during the day. It was up to my brother and I to cook for ourselves. I think that’s where a lot of the creativity stemmed from.
[Related: Q&A: Emmy-nominated actress Karolina Wydra says acting is a powerful, fulfilling art]
Watching my mom taste things that she would make in the kitchen, watching a lot of public television and collecting cookbooks and thumbing through them. In a lot of ways, the reason why cooking interested me was growing up poor. We didn’t have access to a lot of these fancy things. Watching shows and looking at magazines, it made me feel more American and made me want to one day have the resources to be able to cook like them and eat like them.
DB: Is there any time when you felt more or less connected with your background as a Vietnamese American?
VP: I think my connection with my heritage and my culture became a lot stronger when I moved away from home. I left California for Utah in 2008, and up until then, when I was about 29 years old, I had still been living at home. I had access to my mom’s cooking, great food in the Bay area, and I took that all for granted. Moving out to Utah, I started my restaurants, and after a time of trying to emulate other chefs and do all these different things, as good as the end product was, it never felt like it really resonated with me. So as I got older as a chef, you start to try to find more perspective.
Viet Pham walks past the “HOT HOT HOT” sign inside of Pretty Bird. The chef has has built a national profile around his bold fried chicken concept. (Courtesy of Bonjwing Lee)
Next to one of my restaurants was an Asian grocery store. I would walk through the aisles, look at different Asian ingredients, bring them back and use them at the restaurant. One of the first ingredients that I thought I would never use – I thought it was nasty – was a bottle of Red Boat fish sauce, which I picked because it was the most expensive. Now, I use it religiously because I love the product, and I have a really deep relationship with the founders and their family. Being able to use fish sauce and knowing how to use that, and remembering my mom when she told me, “When you cook, if you’re ever missing that oomph and you need something, always add fish sauce, and it makes it better.” That was the defining moment when I felt myself, my heritage, my upbringing and my background the most.
DB: Now you’ve had multiple appearances on the Food Network, but you’ve also maintained your career as an independent chef. You’re someone who can make anything in the world. Why chicken? Why Pretty Bird?
VP: In every culture, there’s a version of fried chicken. The first eight years of my life, I grew up in Illinois, and one of my uncle’s first jobs in the suburbs of Chicago was working for a fried chicken restaurant called Brown’s Chicken. When he worked the evening shifts, he would take home the leftovers, and those leftovers were an opportunity for us as a family to try American food for the first time. When he stopped working there, my mom would try to recreate that fried chicken by using tempura batter, but it was never the right consistency.
In 2012, I was in Orange County at a restaurant, and one of the chefs told me he was trying to convince this gentleman from Memphis, Tennessee, to come out. He said he had this really amazing fried chicken recipe, and he wanted to cook some of it for me. I ate it, and it just blew me away. I told myself that when I get out of fine dining, I’m going to work on a fried chicken concept and pour my heart and soul into that, and hopefully one day be able to scale that concept.
[Related: Restaurant preview: New eateries will harvest community, flavor in LA]
DB: Do you think that using yourself as a personal benchmark, or to constantly see yourself as a personal motivator – do you think that’s the secret to success?
VP: Yeah. When you’re cooking in competitions, you’re not looking over at what the other person’s cooking. You’re looking at what’s in front of you, you’re managing your time internally, and you’re managing your stress levels and your ability to create and multitask.
DB: What’s the mark of a good chef?
VP: Oftentimes I don’t even refer to myself as a chef because I feel like I’m still learning, but I think the mark of a good chef is being a good leader – being someone who can lead, inspire and motivate people. It isn’t just about putting out good food.
