Kalahari

A warm white drifting into pale grey, with a broad, soft horizontal layering that runs the length of the slab like beds of sand. There is no sharp vein and no contrast — the stone reads almost uniform from a distance, and only up close does the layering, and the occasional hint of brown, come out.

This is a background stone, not a leading one: it gives a kitchen a light, calm surface without competing with the cabinetry, the splashback or the lighting. Both finishes are in stock — the polished opens the tone up and deepens the layers, the leathered flattens them into something velvety and very tolerant of fingerprints.

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.