Marble worktops

We would rather talk you out of marble in the wrong place than fit it and watch you regret it. Marble etches. A splash of lemon juice, vinegar, wine or a wet tomato tin left on the surface will eat a dull mark into the polish, and that mark is chemical, not dirt, so it does not clean off. It happens in minutes. If your kitchen is the family thoroughfare and nobody is going to wipe a spill straight away, marble will make you unhappy.

A baking zone, because it stays cool and pastry loves it. An island in a kitchen where the real cooking happens elsewhere. A utility or a boot room. A bathroom vanity, where citrus never appears. And any kitchen belonging to somebody who actively likes the way stone ages, because a marble surface develops a patina of small etches that reads as character if you want it to and as damage if you do not. Both reactions are valid, and only you know which one you are.

Porous, so it stains as well as etches, and red wine on unsealed marble is not a story with a happy ending. It wants sealing on fitting and then regularly, more often than granite. It is softer, so it scratches. Honed marble hides etching far better than polished, because there is less shine to dull, and if you are set on marble we will usually steer you honed.

If you want the look without the upkeep, the marble effect quartzes have become very good. Calacatta and Statuario patterns in engineered quartz are non-porous, do not etch, and from two steps away most people cannot tell. Quartzite is the other answer: a natural stone with marble like movement but far more durability. We stock both and will happily put samples side by side in your kitchen.

Marble is priced by hand. The material cost swings enormously between one block and the next and between suppliers, so a calculator could only give you a number we could not stand behind. Carrara is the most attainable, Calacatta with strong gold veining is the most expensive, and the same name can mean very different stone depending on the quarry and the block.