Granite worktops

Heat. You can stand a hot pan on granite and walk away. That single property keeps it in kitchens where people genuinely cook, long after fashion moved to quartz. It is also extremely hard, it ages well rather than dating, and because it is quarried rather than manufactured, your kitchen has a surface nobody else has.

Granite is porous, which means it wants sealing. Once on installation, then realistically once a year, and it takes about ten minutes with a cloth. Skip it for years and an oil spill near the hob can leave a darker patch. Because it is natural, the slab will not look exactly like a small sample, which is why we send you photographs of your actual slab before anything is cut. And the darkest granites show smears and dust more than a mid-tone does, which is worth knowing before you fall for a polished black.

Granite spans a wider band than quartz because the stone itself varies enormously, from common blacks and speckled greys through to rare exotics that cost multiples of the same area in quartz. Most granite kitchens land in a similar place to quartz, but we price granite by hand rather than through the calculator, precisely because the material cost swings so much between one block and another and between suppliers. Tell us the room and we will price it properly.

If you want to understand what moves a granite price before you ask for one, we explain what actually sets the cost of a granite worktop.

Absolute Black remains the most requested and the most flattering to brass and warm timber. Steel Grey and Silver Pearl sit in the middle and hide daily life well. Star Galaxy, with its fine gold flecks, is the one people fall for in the flesh. At the exotic end there are blues and greens with real movement, which behave more like a feature stone than a work surface, and they are usually best on an island.

This is worth saying plainly, because it is a genuine advantage. Granite contains substantially less crystalline silica than engineered quartz, typically a fraction of it. That matters for the people cutting it rather than for you, but if the silicosis coverage has made you uneasy about engineered stone, natural granite is a reasonable answer to that concern, and it is an honest one.