They say everybody has their specialties when it comes to cooking. Since I'm so rarely the one to cook in this household, I don't get a lot of opportunity to cook big meals, but my specialty in my family happens to be garlic bread. I know most of the tricks. I can scale it as ritzy or as cheap as you like. I've done it with all kinds of breads as a base, done the butter with a lot of combinations of ingredients.
Most of the time, I start it off with a loaf of French bread from the supermarket bakery, mix my butter up ahead of time with some minced garlic and salt, then after I spread that across as much surface area as I can, I add the optics: coarse black pepper, occasionally herbs like crushed basil or freeze-dried chives. Then slap that in the oven at 350 for however long it takes to warm it and get that butter nice and melty.
The photo on the left was a special occasion where I went all-out. Sourdough bread, fresh chives, butter from an Amish dairy, and freshly grated Parmesan. That one was exceptionally well received.
All that said, I can also scale it back. Why go to the effort of doing an entire loaf, if you're the only person who wants garlic bread? That's when I just grab a slice or two of sourdough (or potato bread, even) and slap that into the toaster, butter it up, and give it a few gentle shakes of garlic powder, pinch of salt, and black pepper. Good way to add something to, say, a canned ravioli lunch, plus now you've got something to sop up the leftover tomato sauce once all the noodles are gone.
If I ever get the chance to hang out with whoever, to the point of it being dinner at somebody's house, I will insist on being allowed to do garlic bread for them.
Yes, I do have a whole folder full of photos of garlic bread.