— Porcelain · Bayswater, Melbourne
Porcelain.
Porcelain benchtops, cut and installed from our Bayswater workshop. A large-format ceramic slab, fired glass-hard, with the pattern on the face. Thin, light and colour-fast.
Living with porcelain
Hardness
The face is fired glass-hard. Knives, keys and pans do not scratch it in normal use.
Heat
Pans go straight from the hob to the bench. Porcelain was fired at over 1,200 degrees.
Stains and sealing
Nothing soaks in. No sealing, ever. Wine, lemon, oil and turmeric wipe off.
Outdoors
Colour-fast in sun and unbothered by rain. With sintered stone, it is the surface for outdoor kitchens.
Chips and edges
The pattern sits on the face. A chip on an edge shows the plain body underneath and cannot be polished back, so edges are mitred and corners are treated with care.
Thickness
Slabs are 12 mm or 20 mm. A 12 mm top is often mitred and built up at the edge to read as 40 mm, which keeps the weight down on long runs.
In the workshop
Thin slabs, 12 or 20 mm, cut with clean passes and mitred at the edge so the face wraps the corner, often built up to read as 40 mm. Cutouts are supported and every piece is moved with care to site.
The ranges people ask for
Neolith
Its maker calls it sintered stone. It is fired the same way as porcelain, cared for the same way, and Calacatta Roma is on our floor.
Caesarstone Porcelain
Caesarstone’s post-ban range. Fume, Sleet and Graphite Metal are on our floor.
Dekton, Laminam, Maximum
Ordered in per job.
Two slabs on our floor, Neolith Calacatta Roma and Caesarstone Fume. Neolith calls its slab sintered stone and Caesarstone calls its porcelain. Both are fired the same way, with the pattern on the face, and both are cared for the same way.
See how your pieces are laid out on the slab →
Sleet and Graphite Metal, both 12 mm. Porcelain is the thinnest slab we cut, which is why it goes on walls and outdoor benches where weight matters.
A vanity top, and Fossillia. In a bathroom porcelain shrugs off toothpaste, makeup and hair dye, and never needs resealing.
Design fluted stone yourself →
— 03 · Against the others
Porcelain against the other stones
Porcelain beside the other three, in plain words: what each one is, and the three places it does better or worse than porcelain.
Porcelain
A large-format ceramic slab, fired from clay and minerals, with the pattern printed and fired onto the face. Thin, light and colour-fast.
In the workshop
Thin slabs, 12 or 20 mm, cut with clean passes and mitred at the edge so the face wraps the corner, often built up to read as 40 mm.
Where each one differs from porcelain: green is better, red is worse.
Natural stone Marble · Granite · Quartzite · Travertine
Rock cut from a quarried block into slabs, then polished or honed. Every slab is its own.
Sintered stone Smartstone · Dekton · Neolith · Lapitec
Natural minerals pressed and fired into a dense slab with no resin, coloured through the body. Made for heat, sun and hard use.
Reconstituted stone Quartz-look engineered surfaces, zero-silica
Crushed mineral bound in resin and cured into a uniform slab. The same colour and pattern every time. Today's Australian slabs are zero-silica.
— 04 · Before you buy
The questions people type before they buy porcelain
01Is porcelain banned in Australia?
No. Porcelain is fired clay, not engineered stone, and the ban that started in July 2024 does not touch it. It is one of the two materials that replaced the banned slabs.
02Porcelain benchtop pros and cons
For: no sealing, no stains, hot pans, sun, and the lightest slab we cut. Against: a chip on an edge shows the plain body and cannot be polished out, so edges are mitred, and the pattern is on the face only. Pick it for hard use, not for a profiled edge.
03Does porcelain chip?
On the face, almost never. On an edge or an unsupported corner, it can, if it takes a hard knock. That is why we mitre edges, support every cutout and handle it like glass until it is fixed down.
04How thick is a porcelain benchtop?
12 mm or 20 mm. A 12 mm slab is usually mitred and built up at the front edge to read as 40 mm, which looks solid and keeps the weight down.
05Can you put hot pans on porcelain?
Yes. The slab was fired at over 1,200 degrees. A pan off the hob does not mark it.
06What does a porcelain benchtop cost?
Around reconstituted stone for the slab, a little more for the work, because the mitred edges and careful cutouts take longer. The slab count, the cutouts and the edges decide it, quoted live on your slab layout.
07Porcelain or sintered stone?
Same family. Porcelain is thinner and lighter, with the pattern on the face. Sintered stone is thicker and denser, usually coloured through the body. Behind a cooktop or on a wall, porcelain. On a heavy-use island, either.
— 05 · Edges, thickness, fluting
What we can do with a porcelain slab
Mitred waterfall ends, full-height splashbacks and built-up edges suit porcelain. Profiled edges do not, because the pattern is on the face. Try each edge in 3D on a porcelain sample, then open a live quote.