Mont Blanc

A cool, even white carrying fine grey-taupe veins — mostly horizontal, occasionally branching into one long limb that crosses the whole slab. The ground is almost bare, so that single vein is all the drama there is, and that is exactly what makes Mont Blanc a quiet stone for a room that is already busy.

In a kitchen it behaves like a white without the sterility of a manufactured one: it throws light back into the room, sits well against pale timber, grey or deep blue cabinetry, and lets a splashback or a tap be the feature. The leathered finish drops the reflection and brings the texture forward — a good call in a kitchen with strong downlights.

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.