Before sunrise, the Paris streets fill with the buttery aroma of freshly baked croissants. Duck into a neighbourhood café, perch on a wobbly stool, and help yourself to the flaky pastries that are placed on the counter for customers to pull apart as they jolt themselves awake with tiny espressos.

Paris puts a civilised spin on weekend brunch: scrambled eggs and muffins take on fresh allure in a belle époque setting such as the Café Charbon. If the sandwich is making inroads in Paris, lunch remains rife with romantic potential.

Luxury restaurants lure in customers with affordable set menus, complete with sexy amuse-bouches at an hour when you can best savour the city’s views. As office workers abandon the three-course lunch, this is the quietest time to linger in a little bistro.

After an invigorating stroll, there is no restorative like pure melted chocolate thinned with just a splash of milk, or a pot of aromatic tea alongside dinky almond macarons in pastel colours. This sugary decadence is really just a prelude to cocktail hour, when you might sip an old-fashioned aperitif with a view of the Louvre’s pyramid. From spring onwards, you can enjoy the dramatic Parisian sunset over dinner if the weather is on your side. Terraces spring up, providing the most cherished Parisian setting for a warm evening.

Missed the conventional dinner hour? Visit a brasserie for a tray of pearly grey oysters on crushed ice, or an all-night restaurant for a bowl of cheese-capped onion soup at a time when Paris shows lovers, such as Emily Watson and Rupert Everett in Separate Lies, that it never neglects their desires.

€€€ ALAIN DUCASSE AU PLAZA ATHÉNÉE

Hôtel Plaza Athénée, 25 Avenue de Montaigne, 8th (www.alainducasse.com 01-53-676-500). Nearest Métro: Alma-Marceau

If the price of dinner at Ducasse’s flagship Paris restaurant seems too daunting — and well it might at more than €200 a head — consider breakfast instead in the city’s most dazzling hotel dining room. A little chestnut honey in the dough adds depth to the pastry chef’s extraordinary walnut croissants, but the real “must” here are the “oeufs du jour,” a different egg preparation for every day of the week (look for soft-boiled eggs with caviar on Mondays for €45). Equally chic is the hotel’s bar, which seduces with a cocktail of champagne with crushed raspberries.

€ CAFÉ CHARBON

109 Rue Oberkampf, 11th (01-43-575-513). Nearest Métro: Parmentier

It’s hard to appreciate the faded beauty of this former belle époque dance hall at night, when the noisy crush at the bar will most likely foil any attempt to get near one of the intimate booths. The best time to admire the grande dame of the Oberkampf bar scene is at weekends, when from noon-5pm the Charbon becomes a relaxed destination for a Parisian-style, à la carte brunch of scrambled eggs, bagels and saumon tartare.

€€ CAFÉ MARLY

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