Bryan Rajarison has been cooking since he was eight years old. By fourteen, he was working in elder care centre kitchens. At twenty-three, while still studying design and architecture, he opened a small, warm room on the edge of the Plateau: 325 F. There are personal projects aplenty in Montreal from chefs who leave one life behind for another, but 325 F happens to be the only authentic Malagasy restaurant in North America (not counting the Malagasy food truck Ralibera in NYC). He’ll tell you this without much fanfare, only confidence.

"There's a lot of Malagasy people I'm meeting for the first time (through the restaurant,” Bryan says. “It's really nice to gather the community in Montreal."

The name 325 F carries the whole story: 325 is the number of his childhood home. F is for Florencio, his middle name, which is also his father's name. There’s Fahrenheit as well, the temperature register of a working kitchen.

It's a family restaurant in the most literal sense: his parents helped out nearly every day when it first opened, and his dad still comes in on weekends. "It's great to learn from my dad at this age," Bryan says. "It's a blessing, I think, to have them both."

His parents arrived from Madagascar in the 1990s. Bryan was born in Montreal, raised between two worlds, and fed on recipes that stretch back further than either. His grandfather, who was of Indian origin, rarely went to restaurants and opted to cook at home, and those dishes passed to Bryan's father, and then to Bryan.

Bryan Rajarison has been cooking since he was eight years old. By fourteen, he was working in elder care centre kitchens. At twenty-three, while still studying design and architecture, he opened a small, warm room on the edge of the Plateau: 325 F. There are personal projects aplenty in Montreal from chefs who leave one life behind for another, but 325 F happens to be the only authentic Malagasy restaurant in North America (not counting the Malagasy food truck Ralibera in NYC). He’ll tell you this without much fanfare, only confidence.

"There's a lot of Malagasy people I'm meeting for the first time (through the restaurant,” Bryan says. “It's really nice to gather the community in Montreal."

The name 325 F carries the whole story: 325 is the number of his childhood home. F is for Florencio, his middle name, which is also his father's name. There’s Fahrenheit as well, the temperature register of a working kitchen.

It's a family restaurant in the most literal sense: his parents helped out nearly every day when it first opened, and his dad still comes in on weekends. "It's great to learn from my dad at this age," Bryan says. "It's a blessing, I think, to have them both."

His parents arrived from Madagascar in the 1990s. Bryan was born in Montreal, raised between two worlds, and fed on recipes that stretch back further than either. His grandfather, who was of Indian origin, rarely went to restaurants and opted to cook at home, and those dishes passed to Bryan's father, and then to Bryan.