Nacarado

A pale grey-cream ground drawn over with gold, amber and rust veins in one consistent diagonal, like a wind combing the slab corner to corner. The veins are not wide but there are many of them, and together they give the stone a warm glow that shifts with the light through the day.

That strong directionality is the thing to plan for: on a long run the veins can be sent lengthwise, on an island they can be turned — two decisions that look nothing alike. Three slabs are in stock across two finishes, and they are worth seeing side by side before choosing.

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.