Cuisine is to food what a fountain pen is to a pencil, and finesse is to substance what novelty is to style. Both are useful, but the current food media’s attempt to equate all restaurant food as being equally admirable is like saying college football is no different from the NFL or a grunge band from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

    The differences are manifest at Essential by Christophe, a three year-old French restaurant that has proven itself a hit among cognoscenti, despite being ignored by the New York media, except for Steve Cuozzo of the Post, who declared it the “best new French restaurant in decades.” I concur, “new’ being the correct word, for equally superb older French restaurants in the city like Daniel, Jean-Georges, Le Bernardin and Gabriel Kreuther are in the same firmament.

    But being new––I’ll call it EC––it sets a decorous standard for modern restaurants in which Parisian interior designer Caroline Egasse aimed both for comfort and sophistication: In addition to muted colors of black and  beige, there are touches of brass, porcelain tiles and Élitis wallpapers, with a counterpoint of a bold blue vinyl and silk mural; the tables are made of beautiful treated leather; the lighting casts a softness over a split dining room where everyone can see everyone; The food is set on Bernardaud china. Everyone from hostesses to waiters is dressed in black, never the most appealing color for staff members.

       I have followed Christophe Bellanca’s ever rising career since he was chef at L’Orangerie in Los Angeles back in the 1990s, followed by time at Le Cirque before joining Joël Robuchon in opening L’Atelier. Now he cooks unfettered, and while he is proudly French (born in Ardèche), he does not build his menu solely upon French cuisine, as is true of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Eric Ripert.

    There are three- ($175) and four-course ($205) menus (with wine pairings available), which is lower than most other French restaurants at this level.  Cocktails run $18-$24, with 21 wines by the glass $19-$110 (this last for Château d’Yquem) and three pages of half-bottles. By the bottle wines are very expensive, with only two whites on the list under $100 and the cheapest red $120. If you’re feeling frisky or Emiratical, there’s a Château Margaux 1900 for $30,000.

        “Louise was a bright girl everyone said was quite attractive and could achieve much in her life, even though her being Jewish and a female were handicaps before the war. Of course, she was only a young girl in the 1930s, but by 1939 German Jews were pouring into Paris for refuge. Most of them lived in the 4^th, 11^th, 18^th and 20^th Arrondissements when the Germans captured Paris in 1940. They did a census and found there were about 150,000 Jews in Paris; almost half of them were foreigners.
       “In October that year the Nazis bombed seven synagogues in Paris,  and they put an SS  Police official in charge of taking over Jewish businesses. I remember they even put  a gate and a sign on the children’s playgrounds saying ‘Interdit aux Juifs’—‘forbidden to Jews’—the one Louise and I had played in since we were born. Then the Nazis began arrests, 10,000 in Paris, but many families were able to get to the unoccupied zone south of Paris. The foreigners were deported, with the full assistance of the French police, and few of them ever returned.

       “By 1942—Louise and I were fourteen—all Jews had to wear the yellow Star of David. A year later only 60,000 Jews remained in the city, but those who could get out went to neutral countries like Spain, Portugal or Switzerland.  Many others joined Jewish resistance groups, some of them Zionists, others Communists.      
     “Louise’s family was not able to escape. Her family was eventually arrested and sent to a work camp in Poland, but Louise had been protected by, of all people, the fashion  designer Coco Chanel, who had a very amiable relationship with the Nazis. She despised Jews, although she found many of the Jewish artists and writers worthwhile to be around. She knew them all—Modigliani, Chagall, Soutine, everybody. They lent a cachet to her brand, and Chanel was passionately devoted to keeping her name in the international market.

       “Chanel had always kept an apartment at The Ritz, which was neutral ground because it was owned by the Swiss. And the German officers took over all the grand hotels, including half of The Ritz (below)—the other half, where Chanel lived on the Rue Cambon side, was for French civilians and foreigners—and they even paid for their rooms and food, although with a heavy discount. Hermann Goering took the whole first floor for his headquarter. He ordered a jeweled baton from Cartier and doused himself with French perfume.  In Paris the Nazis tried to act as civilized human beings to show the French they were not such awful people as they imagined. They even willingly handed over their firearms to the hotel while there. Unless they were arresting Jews, the German soldiers were severely punished if they mistreated the Parisians.

“Chanel’s acceptance of the Nazis was crucial to that image, so they allowed her to run her business and keep her boutique open. Her  main customers for her hugely successful Chanel No. 5 perfume were German officers. She did lose her grand suite at the Ritz to the Nazis, but they allowed her to live in two small rooms. Since no one but the Germans were allowed to enter the Ritz’s front door, Chanel came in from the side, up a hidden staircase to get to her rooms and a bedroom in the attic.
       “Chanel was in a survival mode—this was a time, you know, when Maurice Chevalier (left) was singing his gay little songs on the Nazis’ Radio Paris—though she couldn’t have cared less what happened to the Jews. She still ran her boutique and designed clothes, and, with so many Parisians near starving, the Parisian girls were very skinny, just the way Chanel wanted them to show off her clothes. And that is how she met Louise.

       “Louise had been living with a non-Jewish French family who had some clout with the Germans, so, as long as she kept more or less out of sight, she was safe. She lived not far from The Ritz, and one day, as she went out to buy some of the meager rations allowed—I think it was 500 grams of bread each day and five grams of sugar each month—Chanel was headed to her boutique and Louise caught her eye. Chanel was struck by Louise’s look and figure, and how she carried herself quite naturally. Chanel called out to Louise, asked who she was and where she came from, then paused to think, asking Louise to turn around. Then she said, ‘I need a girl like you to be a fitting model and a model for my shows. Are you interested?  I cannot pay you very much, but I may be able to help you to get more food.’
       “Louise was  just fifteen then and wasn’t even sure who this elegant lady was, but she knew about Chanel No. 5 and made the connection. She told Chanel she was very grateful for the offer, but that her being Jewish would be very risky for her to appear in such a public way. Chanel said, ‘I am sure I can work that out with the authorities. They grant me certain . . . privileges.’ They then discussed what Louise would have to do—she had no job and only worked for the family she lived with—and Chanel asked her to come to the boutique to try on some dresses. She said, ‘First, you must remove that yellow star.’ After that, they went to her atelier and introduced Louise to the much-reduced staff, saying only that Louise would be working there and making no reference to her being Jewish.

       “After that, things went very well with Louise and Chanel, who after a while said the girl was her favorite model. At first, Louise was very anxious about appearing in fashion shows that were attended almost entirely by German officers and their mistresses. If they inquired about her, her Jewish identity might be exposed, but Chanel managed to keep Louise out of sight when not modelling, and, for a while all went well. Chanel even confided in her, believing Louise would never betray this woman who had given her a better life and knew her secret.
       “One time she said to Louise, ‘My life didn’t please me, so I created my life, so when this horrid war is over, so should you.’
       “Chanel was certainly a self-made woman. She came from nothing. Her mother washed laundry. She told Louise, ‘It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person. I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness.’

       “For a fifteen-year-old girl such sentiments made little impact on Louise, but she knew that she was in the presence of one of the world’s most remarkable women. When the war was over, Louise thought she might continue in Chanel’s employ, although she also had dreams of entering one of the professions, like medicine or the law.
       “Louise was, of course, as aware as anyone in Paris what the Germans had done to our city, and how the Jews and anyone who opposed them were treated. But for the time being she was in a safe haven and could do nothing about that or risk being deported, like her parents. And then, things turned very dark for Louise.
       “After one of Chanel’s fashion shows, a young German officer in attendance asked the designer about Louise and Chanel tried to divert him by saying, ‘Oh, she’s just another girl. They come and go.’ But the officer insisted on meeting Louise and Chanel could not refuse. He spoke to her at length and invited her to dine with him at The Ritz that evening. Louise looked at Chanel, who raised the palms of her hands and shook her head, as if to say, ‘What can I do?’
    Of course, Louise knew she could not say no to the officer and agreed to meet him that night at eight o’clock. After the man left, Louise broke into tears. Chanel was not good at showing her emotions. She would not embrace Louise and repeated what she always said, almost flippantly,  ‘If you’re sad, add more lipstick and attack.’ Then she said she would dress Louise for the evening, picking a little black dress off the rack than she had modeled that day. ‘I’ll give you some pearls,’ said Chanel, who always wore pearls.

       “I will not go into details of the dinner, but Louise was terrified, even though the officer tried very hard to be a gentleman throughout. Then, at the end of the meal, he said he wished to see Louise again, if she would kindly consent, which Louise could hardly refuse.
       “And so, a one-sided affair began with the officer. His name was Dieter von Hoffmann—all the Germans in Paris added ‘von’ to their names to sound aristocratic—and he was attractive and, at least at first, very kind to Louise. He proudly showed her off to his colleagues as a beautiful French girl (he spoke French, but Louise knew no German) who was a Chanel model. He would take her to dinner at least twice a week, and though Louise pretended to warm to the man, she loathed him and feared him. Before long he had taken her to his bed, delighted that she was a virgin.