Hôtel de Crillon sits on the Place de la Concorde, a vast square renamed for bloodshed, then the lack of it – it was the Place de la Révolution, with knitting and bouncing heads. Now it is placid, and the Crillon is the most placid thing in it.

No one does grand hotels like the French, except perhaps the Swiss, who have nothing better to do. The Crillon was one of twin palaces commissioned by Louis XV before the French butchered his grandson and his wife outside them: it looks like Buckingham Palace but prettier and with possible PTSD. It has been a hotel for 115 years and next to it our Ritz and Savoy look grubby, needy even, but they were built for the bourgeoisie. They have a different kind of grandeur, a kind I prefer.

My only issue with such comfort is: having found it, how do you live without it?

Like all grand hotels that want to survive, it has been remade, and I stare at deliberately confounding art – a feathered snake in a glass box, toy cars– and dine in three of its restaurants. The idea of the Crillon, common to grand hotels, is that it is a dreamworld you do not have to leave and, in homage to the completeness of this vision, for 24 hours I don’t.

Jardin d’Hiver is the all-day dining room and tearoom. There are painted clouds on the ceiling, as there were in the recent Planet of the Apes: until he touches the clouds the ape does not understand that he is imprisoned. But what a prison! The floors are marble, the windows high, the massed flowers lilac. The view is of a garden. My only issue with such comfort is having found it, how do you live without it? Perhaps the real clientele – I am an imposter, like all hacks – have no such issues because they do not have to.

And the food? This is a seafood and burger joint with painted clouds, and there is nothing wrong with that: what is €30 for two mini cheeseburgers under heaven? The clouds obscure the food – the food is fine. The food is nowhere near the point of this place.

It is more important in Nonos, the grill room – this is a masculine place. These restaurants are quite fiercely gendered, though I suspect the sexes meet in L’Écrin, the Michelin-starred restaurant down the hall. It’s €795 for seven courses, with wine, though you can choose what you eat from a list of ingredients, which sounds good to a veteran of horrid small plates. There are no painted clouds in Nonos: it is browns, beiges and bronzes. I eat food to match the decor, a vast, bloody American sirloin – they write down the provenance – for €52. For €40 you can add half a lobster. This restaurant feels more American than French – it’s about mass, not sauce – and I don’t have room for chocolate mousse.

The Butterfly Patisserie is a bakery with a street entrance and a small sitting area. This is fashionable now: the Berkeley in Knightsbridge does it too. Because it is for passers-by, it is more overwrought than the rest: the Crillon’s whole aesthetic – luxury whimsy? – must be squeezed into a parlour, and it is. There are birds of paradise on the walls, and marble counters for the millefeuille and cappuccino finger and lemon tart, which are superbly lit. They are beautiful but, unlike at the Berkeley, they taste beautiful too: if you are in Paris, I think the Trolley Experience with Hot Chocolate for €25 is worth your time. Something for everyone: well, not everyone.

I like this hotel – it’s very beautiful, and they gave me a pillowcase when I left, for remembrance. But is it France? I don’t know, I didn’t go out.