Is There A Right Way To Cut Longhorn Steakhouse's Bread?

bread and butter (l) woman shares Longhorn Steakhouse bread observation (c) LongHorn Steakhouse entrance (r)

A woman says there's a right way to cut LongHorn Steakhouse's bread. Here's what the company says and whether a key design is intentional.

For many, free honey-wheat bread is one of the best parts of a trip to LongHorn Steakhouse. But according to one diner, there’s a right way to dig into the complimentary loaf.

Cariblair0 (@cariblair0) posted a video that received more than 3.2 million views. In it, she says that there is a way that customers are supposed to cut—or tear into—LongHorn Steakhouse’s bread. According to her, it’s along the bread’s scoring lines.

In the clip, one other person, who is accompanying her, cuts into LongHorn Steakhouse’s famous honey-wheat loaf along its scoring lines, creating even, triangle-shaped portions. A perforated knife provided alongside the loaf seems to glide through the bread rather than create a crumbly mess. So, is there any truth to the content creator’s method?

Is There Really A ‘Right’ Way To Cut Longhorn Steakhouse’s Bread?

In the comments section, a few viewers agreed with Cariblair0’s insight regarding the loaf, although they had an alternative strategy for portioning out the bread: pulling it apart.

“Longhorn server here…. So it’s actually pull-apart bread. Pick it up and rip it apart where the lines are. No need to even cut. Pulls apart perfectly,” a commenter said.

Another viewer added, “You can just pull it apart too…that’s what the slats are for and why we don’t put a knife with the bread anymore.”

Other commenters, however, pointed out that the lighter lines on the top of the bread were most likely from the baking process.

“[The] lines are there literally just to control the expansion of the bread when it cooks lol,” a commenter said.

The Scoring Lines: What Do They Mean?

Viewers pointed out another important note—LongHorn Steakhouse itself doesn’t make its own bread. A company called Epi Breads does.

So did Epi Breads intend to make the bread easy to cut along its scoring lines?

Not necessarily. Epi Breads has never stated that it scores LongHorn Steakhouse’s bread in a way that makes it “pull apart.” And while it’s possible the bakery makes LongHorn’s bread with a specific way to cut the loaf in mind, it’s also not an established fact.

Scoring bread helps guide a loaf “to rise in a consistent, controlled, and optimal manner,” according to King Arthur Baking. It’s an important part of the baking process, with or without portion size consideration. BAKERpedia notes that scoring can create “weak points” in the dough skin, “thus reducing its tenacity or strength (i.e., resistance to expansion).”

“Tear and share” loaves sometimes use a deep scoring method, which can make bread easier to rip apart in segments. However, it’s unclear if LongHorn Steakhouse ordered its honey-wheat loaves for that reason or if Epi Breads specifically created the bread for customers to cut it along its scoring lines.