With his soft-spoken demeanour and his winter tuque pulled all the way down to his eyebrows, Geoff Hopgood comes off as sort of a shy guy at first. But get him talking and you soon learn that the Halifax native who opened Hopgood's Foodliner in Toronto just over a year ago loves to have a good time. Most often, Hopgood's fun is had at the restaurant – "it's like a party every night," he says – or at the apartment that he and his wife Lucy share nearby, in the city's Roncesvalles neighbourhood. "My wife invites people over when she thinks I haven't seen enough of my friends," Hopgood says with a chuckle. The menu is often a mix of special and simple, such as these gorgeous butter-poached oysters as a starter and something basic and spot on, like a perfect roast chicken, to follow. He might pair it all with a Portuguese vinho verde to drink. "It's a beautiful thing," the chef says of the decadent oyster dish. "Usually when you butter-poach something you need an emulsification of butter and water, but in this case you can use the brine from the oysters."