Negresco

A deep blue-grey, nearly black, scattered with small white crystals and lighter zones that read like clouds inside the stone. Up close there is a great deal to look at; from across the room it reads as an even, dignified dark.

Four slabs are in stock, which makes it one of the most practical darks here — enough for an island, a run and a splashback in the same stone. Leathered it is velvety and shows no fingerprints, which is usually the right finish for a dark in a kitchen that gets used.

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.