This guy is shucking amazing

One of Canada’s best oyster shuckers didn’t think much of the job when he started.

“At first it was a really crappy job. You’re stabbing yourself and it’s very tedious,” says John Bil, now 41.

He was in his early 20s when he got hired at Rodney’s Oyster Bar in Toronto. He needed the money: He had plans to become a professional mountain biker.

That didn’t happen, but he did improve his shucking skills. Three years later, in 1992, he went to Prince Edward Island for the summer, working at Rodney’s new island location.

He did that for three summer and then, in 1995, he moved there permanently. It was partly for love of the island, and partly to learn everything he could about oysters.

He got a job at Carr’s Lobster Pound in Stanley Bridge, selling lobster and oysters. Meanwhile, he got himself a portable oyster bar and asked bar owners around the island if he could set up on busy pub nights.

Why would you put oysters on a menu, they asked. People in P.E.I. ate oysters all the time, but at home. “It’s like selling a ham sandwich,” explains Bil.

But some agreed and Bil eventually had a small but steady business on the side.

Then he took a new job running Atlantic Shellfish’s oyster plant. Over the next decade, he really got to learn about the cultivation and harvest of the shellfish.

As part of his job, he travelled to restaurants across the country, training kitchen and wait staff about shucking and serving oysters. That made him miss the restaurant industry, so he went back.

He did some consulting in Montreal and New York City, and helped open an oyster bar in Charlottetown. Now, he’s part owner of Ship to Shore in Darnley and The Black Horse, a brand new restaurant in Kensington, both in P.E.I.

Bil used to shuck a few hundred thousand oysters a year; Now he’s down to about 50,000.

He starts by opening up the oyster’s two shells by inserting a knife at the hinge, wiggling it, and giving it a twist. (“That’s the part where you’re gritting your teeth if you’re new at it.”) Once it’s open, he runs his knife along the top shell, cutting away the muscle that held the shells together. Then, he looks for sand and ensures the oyster is opaque and fresh looking. If it’s too transparent, Bil tosses it away.

And does he eat oysters himself? At least two dozen a week.