Little-known Wren masterpieces are highlights of Open House weekend

It's been seven years since I last enjoyed, and wrote about, Open House London weekend. What can I say? We've been busy. It always falls on the weekend closest to my birthday and our wedding anniversary, meaning there's a good chance we're travelling. But this year, with an October holiday already booked, we decided to spend the weekend in London and take full advantage of this wonderful programme.

For those of you who don't know about it: it's a festival of architecture and design run annually by a charitable organisation that talks owners into opening almost 1000 buildings inside the M25 to the public, most of which are normally closed. This includes everything from private homes to massive office blocks, Georgian gems to modern statements, grand homes to industrial complexes. A few blockbusters, like 10 Downing Street and the Shard, have very limited tickets awarded by lottery. Some other buildings require advance booking. But for most you just turn up, queue up and enjoy.

We loosely themed our sightseeing, with one track being all about Sir Christopher Wren and the other about government.

Saturday started at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, familiar backdrop to years of flower shows. Its actual function is as a military retirement home. It dates back to the reign of Charles II and therefore, unsurprisingly, was designed by the king's go-to-architect. It's a textbook Wren building, with its red brick, classical detailing and gracious rooflines. Inside, you get to see the chapel, the dining hall and and a magnificent state room (above). The chapel is particularly beautiful. White coffered barrel vault, dramatic fresco above the altar, wooden pews with typical 17th century carving and light pouring in through massive, arched, clear windows.

Over at Marlborough House, hidden in plain sight behind walls and trees just off Pall Mall, Wren downshifted to domestic architecture. On a grand scale, however, as he was building for the Dukes of Marlborough. The house is one of my favourite secret treasures in London, full of pleasing proportions, warm paneling, dramatic murals, sinuous wrought iron, and all the other touches that make a Wren house. For more, read about my last visit.

We then popped our head into the Queen's Chapel at St. James' Palace. I have wanted to get in here for years (it's normally only open to the public for Sunday services, which I've never made) and it was the highlight of my weekend. Inigo Jones designed it, but I include it in my Wren track as Jones was such an enormous influence on Wren. When you see the delicacy and brightness of the coffered barrel vault here, you know exactly where Wren got the roof of the chapel in Chelsea, and for so many of his other churches. The Queen's Chapel is an elegant, soothing little space with a fascinating history. First built for the Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria, it has a history of being the official hub of non-Anglican worship when the queen is from another religion. My half-Danish husband was proud to point out that it had been a Danish Reformed church in the time of Queen Alexandra (for whom one of his ancestors worked as a nanny). It's a wonderfully feminine space, with its blue and white colour scheme and nave bathed by cheerful sunlight from an enormous Venetian window above the altar.

Many of the most popular buildings in the Open House are government offices, perennial favourites including Horse Guards (Army HQ) and the Foreign Office HQ. I'd visited these last time around, but that was pre-husband, so I had to return. The Foreign Office, in particular, is magnificent enough to deserve repeat attention. This time I was most struck by the politically incorrect scenes of colonial domination that are carved into the walls. It used to be the Indian Office, after all. Good thing the people who want the statue of Cecil Rhodes to come down at Oxford haven't turned their eyes on this building. They wouldn't know where to start. (I'd suggest the bas relief of the sultan and his wives grovelling in supplication to the god-like English as he offers up his country to their management.) Over at Horse Guards, they've opened up the basement cockpit where the boys used to get up to illicit gambling and drinking in the 18th century. Little modernised or enhanced, it's a brilliant time capsule.

We also popped in to the Argentine Embassy. For an architecture geek, it's worth visiting simply to

get a sense of what life was like in all those grand houses in Belgravia. This one is on a corner of Belgrave Square, with sweeping views, gracious proportions and heaps of elegance. Beyond its refined architectural bones, however, the interior decoration isn't anything special. So the Argentines use their Open House slot to promote young Argentine artists. This was great fun, with work ranging from beautiful to thought provoking to fun but somewhat pointless. Was the netted soccer court in the ballroom really art? I liked the guy standing on the balcony, using a string to operate a swing outside with "power" carved onto the seat in English and Spanish. "Look!" he proclaimed. "I am pulling the strings of government, hidden, yet in control!" A bit heavy handed on the metaphor, granted, but as interactive art went I enjoyed it.

There was more on my list, including an old Admiralty dining room tucked in to another office behind Whitehall, but we ran out of time. Maybe next year. Or in another seven...

Utopian Franco-Italian fusion at Angela Hartnett's Murano

The computer that matched us said we were 98% compatible. As we mark five years of marriage, we acknowledge that it got us right on the headlines, but perhaps missed the fine points.

We both love opera, but he considers my Italians bombastic and trite, while I think his German needs editing and has difficulties making passion credible on stage. In the wine cellar, I find his beloved light French reds tart and forgettable, while he thinks my favoured merlot/cab sav blends are over-fruited thugs. We're both keen on history, but his obsession with battles and military hardware can try my patience, while he feels the same about my fascination with personalities, art and architecture. Both card-carrying "foodies", I'm sceptical about his classic French cuisine, which often over-complicates and has too many sauces and potatoes for my taste. He's unconvinced by the Italians.

Which is why Angela Hartnett's Murano is probably the best place we could possibly choose to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. (And my birthday.) Though Hartnett is best known as an Italian chef, the truth is that Murano's Michelin-starred menu brings us a culinary utopia where influences from Paris to Palermo come together to create the perfect fusion cuisine. Mr. Bencard feels French. The former Miss Ferrara feels Italian. Both are very happy.

Murano's pricing is elegantly simple: decide whether you're doing two, three, four or five courses, each with a set price, then pick your food. While options are laid out in what would be a traditional Italian order of dining, if you want to start with something from the third course, and follow up with two dishes from the first, they're happy to oblige. We went for four. Given the delicate serving sizes and the extras (amuse bouche, a bit of charcuterie, breads, pre-desert, petit four) this is the right level if you're hungry. Five would probably be excessive, and three would be more than sufficient ... but then you'd miss out on too much of the magic coming out of the kitchen.

I started with rabbit tortellini in one of those light but flavour-packed sauces that demands you use a bit of bread to mop up every bit. (One of the earliest life lessons taught to me by my revered Sicilian grandfather. No wonder I've always had a weight problem.) Piers admittedly won the contest on this course with a salmon tartare that was exceptionally balanced, with rich fish, creamy dressing, crunchy veg and citric fruit combining to deliver a sunny Mediterranean afternoon on a plate. I wouldn't have traded, however, as I would have missed out on the Valpolicella that proves you can have light red that's also mellow and fruity. (Made by Italians, naturally.)

On to artichoke heart served with a blue cheese croquette. This tiny plate exemplified how fine dining can actually be Weight Watchers-friendly. Just a quarter of the heart, with a croquette the size of the top half of your thumb, yet packed with enough flavour to power a dish four times its size. It was a course meant for cutting up into tiny slivers, savouring each one with a rather bizarre wine from Slovenia that was overly-minerally on its own but a perfect match for the notoriously hard-to-pair ingredients. Piers, meanwhile, was blissfully ensconced in a crab salad and a glass of Reisling.

We split the cote de boef for our main. (This has a supplemental charge.) A dish to make me weep for all the vegetarians in the world. Simple, perfectly cooked, carved off the bone at the table. Perfection.

Though Murano has a fascinating wine list, we let the sommelier put together a wine flight for us. This is a great option, as she pairs the right wine for each individual dish, and we found every choice to be flawless. Note, however, that the "about" £45 each is quite flexible, especially when you choose to have a second glass of the extraordinarily tasty St. Emillion she chose for the beef.

If there's one dish on the planet that best exemplifies Franco-Italian fusion, it has to be pistachio soufflé. The flavours of Italy packed into the most classical of French processes, Murano delivers the best I've ever had. This is what-I-want-for-my-last-meal-on-Earth stuff, with a towering rise, punchy flavours and a rich chocolate sauce to obliterate any health effects of the egg-white based soufflé. Aware that it was both my birthday and our anniversary, the kitchen piled on the sugar with an additional lemon tart and a triple chocolate delice with almond brittle and black currant sorbet, decorated with celebratory messages in chocolate sauce. I thought briefly of those profligate Romans with their vomitoriums off their banqueting halls, so they could pause and make room for more courses of culinary delight. Disgusting to modern sensibilities, but in this situation I could understand their strategy. I let modem sensibility prevail and sent 2/3rds of the bonus desserts back to the kitchen. But not before sampling enough to assure you, dear reader, that Murano is a haven for those with a sweet tooth.

As if to drive that point home, the petit four arrived. Squares of palate-cleansing quince jelly and cannoli the size of your pinkie. "Delicious," I said dubiously of the frothy citric concoction inside, " but not really cannoli cream."

"So much better than those heavy door stops you made me eat at Missouri baking," he insisted. "Light pastry, subtle filling ... they've made them French!"

I decided not to argue. In marriage as in restaurants, fusion and compromise bring out the best in us.