Our Story

Little Fish is an intimate 16-seat BYOB restaurant located in Queen Village. Its open kitchen and seafood-focused, seasonally rotating multi-course tasting menu are led by Chef-owner Alex Yoon, who once was a cook at Little Fish and, years later, returned to carry the restaurant's torch passed to him from his former chef. In his decade as chef-owner, Yoon and his team have solidified the restaurant as a Philly classic with evolving menus to meet the modern diner.

Chef Bio
As a first-generation Korean American Chef, Alex Yoon spent his early childhood in the blue-collar North Philadelphia neighborhood of Olney, growing up in the deli his parents owned and operated, before moving out to the Philadelphia suburbs. He developed his cooking skills at a young age by stepping into the kitchen to help out his working mother, who often wasn’t home to prepare meals. Though he did not intend to pursue a culinary career, these experiences inspired him to learn the technical side of cooking, which resulted in him moving back to Philadelphia, after attending college in Ohio, he attended the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College. During his studies, he worked alongside Chef Steve Eckerd, at the touchstone of French cuisine in Philly, Le Bec Fin. After earning his degree, he worked on the line at Serpico before joining Little Fish as sous chef. In 2014, he competed in the Ment’or Young Chef Competition and took this opportunity to learn at Chef Mauro Colagreco’s three Michelin-starred Mirazur on the French Riviera. Upon the completion of his international stage, Alex moved to San Francisco, to work for Corey Lee at three Michelin-starred Benu, but when Little Fish’s previous owner presented Alex with the chance to purchase the restaurant in 2016,he accepted the opportunity to return to his hometown to open the restaurant’s third iteration, transitioning to a seafood-focused menu with Asian influences. Over the last decade, acclaim has followed Alex and Little Fish: He was named a 2019 StarChefs Rising Star, the restaurant earned a coveted spot on The Inquirer’s The 76 (restaurants defining Philadelphia’s food scene) in 2024, as well as being named a semi-finalist in 2025 by the James Beard Awards for Outstanding Hospitality