I kind of had the opposite reaction. ("Paris syndrome syndrome"?) I kept hearing from tourists that Paris was a shitty town, Parisians are rude, nobody in France likes Paris, etc. But after spending a few weeks there, I really grew to love the place. The parks were lovely, the food was great and inexpensive (if you went to the markets and bakeries instead of always going out), the weather was fantastic, and it was a perfect walking city. Nobody was ever rude to me, though perhaps it's because I always approached people with my broken French before requesting to switch to English (if needed).
On the other hand, I expected to love London and Barcelona, but they fell flat for me.
Same experience here in Paris - everyone was super nice. We'd occasionally talk to Americans who said everyone was rude to them, and we couldn't figure out why.
We found London to be quite nice, too, fwiw. (Both the people and the city.)
I have never been to Paris proper, but I do enjoy French cuisine, and so was hoping that you might be able to add a quantitative dimension to this comment (as in €X for Y)
Well, I didn't go to restaurants much, so it may not qualify as "French cuisine" in your eyes. But you could get a world-class baguette[1] in almost any part of town for about a Euro, same with croissants, and produce at the markets for... well, basically a negligible amount of money. I remember getting a small bag of delicious donut peaches for about €1/kilo. The same peaches were €4/kilo at the supermarket. (As an aside, pretty much all the vine tomatoes I ran into, even the ones at the supermarket, tasted amazing, as if they were just harvested from someone's garden. The only time I had that experience in the US was when we grew our own tomatoes.) Cheese shops were abundant and had fantastic selections, though I don't remember the exact prices. (They were very reasonable.) You could buy a whole rotisserie chicken for €7 or less if you knew where to look; I got these a lot and used the bones for stock. (Tragically, I think I still prefer Costco chicken!) There was a lot of canned terrine, rillettes, pate, etc. in the specialty stores (€5 or less), and a can could last you a week. You could also get them at the butcher shop, but I never found one close to me that had them. Pastries at some of the world-class bakeries were very expensive — €7 to €10 per piece — but they literally looked like jewels and it was worth it for the occasional indulgence. I had many lunch picnics at the parks and it was fantastic every time!
Oh, and obviously, there's lots of wine, but I'm not much of a wine drinker so I didn't investigate too much. Good beer was surprisingly cheap, though: I found a supermarket near me selling Chimay Blue for €2/11oz.
On the other hand, I expected to love London and Barcelona, but they fell flat for me.