We demonstrate the experimental implementation of an all-optical header recognition system for phase modulated data using logic gates, realized with the least number of active elements compared to conventional demonstrations. We experimentally implement the individual optical AND, XNOR/XOR logic gates and optimize their performances. We integrate these logic gates to build an all-optical header recognition system. We verify the working of the header recognition system for different combinations of header and local address bits. We also discuss the implementation challenges of the demonstrated system. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.