I am probably going with Ceasarstone, but I am curious about Quantra too. Hope you hear some feedback!

So many great experiences with quartz countertops that I have to share my experience for those in the decision process. Expected low/no-maintenance, nearly-bullet-proof from Cambria, but my countertops are terribly marked up from, of all things, rivets on jeans. A week or 2 after Cambria Whitehall installation, Installer came out to help with removing gray marks--they look like pencil scribble and some would wash off with dish soap, but others wouldn't. Installer decided the marks were from metal objects, mostly pocket knives (his marked the edge while reaching to clean the widow sill). The marks that wouldn't wash off Installer said are scratches. Fast-forward a week and we have 4 friends over for a Friday night. The next day: tons of marks all over the edges of the counter. Whitehall is very white and small-grained so these marks are *very* obvious. Tested the Cambria sample piece and jean rivets did mark it. Seems like it wouldn't show on a darker color, but it is something I didn't think to test on my sample prior to purchase. As for other benefits of quarts, there is one small stain that I can't figure out where it came from. But wine, tea, coffee, berries, chili sauce all clean up easily.

@linnertime - Can you share the color and manufacturer? Hard to tell from the picture, but it definitely resembles the Arlington Grey (Best Cheer Stone) that we are getting... Thanks.

Yes, I have first hand experience doing this for a couple different clients. My advice would be not to flush mount it. Couple of reasons for this: -To flush mount, your fabricator will have to route the counter-top to the exact size of the Miele cooktop frame. For some fabricators, this is outside their abilities and can result in a rough cut and force you to buy another slab of quartz. -For the fabricators that can do this, depending upon his skill level, this will leave a 1/16-1/8" gap around all sides, perfect place for food and grease to get caught in, and getting it cleaned becomes very difficult indeed. -Another downside is that down the road, when Miele discontinues that cooktop (and this is inevitable), while they will certainly offer another cooktop of the same size, the actual frame and housing is highly unlikely to line up with your already routed counter-top, leading to difficult and expensive options should the cooktop need replacing. For these reasons, I find the risk of headaches far outweighs the aesthetic reward. The good news is that Miele's cooktops have some of the slimmest profiles on the market, such that even when installed normally, they look quite sleek indeed. Hope that helps, Anthony Appliance Buyer's Guide