Night at Bar Tartine Will Help Children with Special Needs

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A Hungarian dinner for a cause.

Where: Bar Tartine, 561 Valencia (at 16th St.)

When: Monday, June 27, cocktails at 6:30 p.m., dinner and auction follow

Cost: $250 per person (includes wine, tax, and gratuity; fully tax-deductible)

The Rundown: Many know Tartine Bakery's beautiful pastries, but may be far less familiar with co-owner Elisabeth Prueitt's other focus. The chef recently founded the Conductive Learning Center of San Francisco, a nonprofit school for children with motor disabilities such as cerebral palsy and spina bifida.

Opening this fall, the school will provide access for Bay Area children with motor challenges to a medical-educational system not widely seen outside of founding doctor András Pető's native Hungary. Prueitt and Tartine co-owner husband Chad Robertson's child has cerebral palsy, and benefited from visiting a school modeled on Pető's system, Michigan's Conductive Learning Center. Now, Prueitt and school cofounder and teacher Krisztina Abonyi-Bernstein face financial hurdles.

The first benefit dinner will feature a family-style Hungarian dinner from Bar Tartine chef Nick Balla and wines from Alex Fox, with desserts from Prueitt. Live music during dinner will precede a silent auction featuring a Tartine bread baking apprenticeship with Robertson, sailing lessons from OCSC, and items from San Francisco restaurants such as Bar Jules, Boulette's Larder, Foreign Cinema, Locanda, and more.