Black Wave

Compressed strata in grey, black and white, folded and moving horizontally along the slab like a current arrested mid-flow. The pattern is very dense and continuous, with no quiet zone — the stone is movement from end to end.

At 310 by 207 this is the widest slab in stock, which gives rare freedom in planning a deep island. The leathered finish drops the glare and keeps the pattern graphic rather than showy, and that is what lets a stone like this work in a kitchen people actually live in.

Quartzite is a metamorphic natural stone: quartz sand compacted under heat and pressure until it became a single crystalline rock. It is harder than marble and usually harder than granite — a knife, salt or a ceramic plate leave no mark — and unlike marble it does not etch from lemon or vinegar. It is porous, though: the slab is sealed before delivery, and resealing every year or two keeps it that way. There is no resin in it as there is in engineered quartz, so a hot pan will not scorch it — a trivet is still a good habit, particularly near an edge or a joint.

Every slab is one single piece of rock, and no two slabs of the same stone are ever identical. So we drive out to the supplier's yard with you, choose the actual slab there, and mark the layout on it before it is cut.