We eat at a very nice Italian restaurant which features the best bread in the world. But for some reason, they only cut the loaf half-way down from the top. This requires grabbing the whole loaf to rip off a slice. Is this normal procedure? does the application of many hands add to the flavor?
It allows you to decide how thick to slice it, and it doesn’t have to be the same for everyone at the table. Anyway, it’s generally not necessary to grab the whole loaf to cut a slice of bread. Pick up the knife, cut a slice, then pick up the freshly cut slice of bread. Even if you do need to hold the loaf still while you cut, as long as your hands are clean it’s no big deal.
Why would you assume they’re doing this to enhance flavour. Most likely, its a style thing (the experience of breaking bread), or its done for convenience (so the bread doesn’t fall into an untidy heap.
Just choose dinner friends who wash their hands.
I think the OP’s point is that they cut it in the kitchen, where they have cutting boards and bread knives, but only cut 1/2 way down so the diners have to pick up the whole loaf and tear off their piece. When it’s served to the table, it’s in a basket and usually covered with a napkin, so it’s next to impossible to cut through it the rest of the way with a regular knife, and by not touching it. In a basket.
So OP, I feel your pain.
It’s do that or douse the loaf in bleach before eating.
Those are good guesses, but another good guess is that, if the bread were sliced completely, the surface of the bread would be exposed to air and would thus dry out and get cold faster.
Half sliced trumps half baked 
If your fastidious, use a napkin while holding the bread for cutting.
If the Board of Health had a problem with it, you can bet the practise would end.
Actually, the answer to an ostensibly facetious GQ question is yes!
Here’s the abstract of a study published on 17 July in the journal Psychological Science:
Obviously, it’s not about flavor. It’s about the dining experience.
Italian culture has quite a tradition of communal eating. In the US, you usually sit at little tables and everyone orders their own thing. In Italy, it’s not unusual for strangers to all sit at larger tables together, and many dishes are served family style so that patrons serve themselves. Many Italian restaurants in the US make some concessions to this style of eating. Buca di Beppo, for example, serves all of their dishes family style - your choice is large or small, but even the small is designed to feed at least two people.
I don’t really think there’s much of a health problem here. Anybody I’m eating with has at least shaken my hand and we’ve probably touched many of the same items, like the salt and pepper shakers (and Lord only knows how often those are cleaned well). The bread is being eaten quickly enough that there’s no time for a bacterial colony to take off and grow, so it’s no more dangerous than other contacts with a person’s face or hands.
Homeopathic Human Contact.
My WAG is that they slice most, but not all the way through the bread so that the slices stay in a neat loaf form. If they sliced all the way through it might not look like a whole loaf, but a bunch of (possibly leftover) slices of bread.
If it is actually only cut halfway through, the slicer might not have done his job well.
Have you tried tasting everyone’s hands to find out?
(As noted above, grab the loaf with the napkin it’s wrapped in.)
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I encounter this problem at meetings where we have a catered lunch, served with - if you’re lucky - sufficient plasticware to hopefully provide one utensil per person and per serving dish. So the only cutting option is to attempt to get a serrated, flimsy plastic knife to split the rock-hard crust, or to just grab hold of the bread and twist.
“I bet you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today.”
Get your bread first. Problem solved.
At any restaurant I’ve been to like that the bread is served cut in half on a small cutting board with a bread knife. You don’t tear off a piece, you cut it with the bread knife. If the bread is served in a basket, it’s already sliced, not just cut in half.
While some may exist, I’ve never been to any restaurant that could be considered nice that just put a loaf of bread on the table cut in half but with no means to slice it. That sounds like the kind of thing a low-brow place that snips your tie off with scissors would do.
I still don’t think you’re understanding what the OP is describing. The bread isn’t cut in half, it’s sliced halfway down—several cuts from the top partway down, not all the way to the bottom.
I also hate that, because it’s usually a bread with a rather hard crust, and I have problems with my hand, so I really have to mangle it. If they would also give me a wooden tray and a bread knife it would be great, or if they would slice it, it would be great. By the time the third person is trying to take bread there is six inches of the bottom crust attached to the one or two slices of bread left.