Everyone is asking for a porcelain slab fabricator close to where they live. What I did was search on Houzz to find local contractors with porcelain slab installations. Then viewing work that they did a few years ago for any cracking particularly around the sink faucets. I did not have good experiences asking the material vendor for contractors for other projects I have done.

It is really odd how some decisions are easy and some aren't - like my counter top and my refrigerator choice :-) I don't really know how I feel about solid black. I know I don't like the solid white very sleek kitchens which are ubiquitous but black does play well with the bronze and green and wood tones that will be my kitchen as well as the rest of the living/dining area. I am worried about shiny black in terms of showing every scratch and piece of dust as patterns are more forgiving. I think of black cars I see which tend to have swirl marks where I guess they were polished and so the minor scratching shows up in the sun when I drive around. I am reading contradictory stuff about durability of the porcelain slab as well as a very similar material called Neolith which my designer also recommended. That one seems to be popular since it duplicates marble beautifully with almost none of the upkeep issues - but I don't like the swirly marble anyway so duplicating it isn't one of my goals - maintenance or no maintenance :-) I'm in Los Angeles so I am going to actually trot down to look at the stuff in person again (all choices) because none of the possibilities really rock my boat - or if I admire them, they make no design sense in terms of clashing with the overall all feel; being too busy for a relatively small kitchen or having other issues.

More than granite. More than quartz. Absolutely flat substrate and the right installer is critical.

There are innumerable threads about the new porcelain countertops out there. I was attracted to them myself. I learned, however, that it's very hard to find an experienced fabricator to install these. And without an experienced fabricator, they are a total, very expensive disaster. Consider Corian - preferably Glacier White. It's quite inexpensive, is virtually bullet-proof, can be fixed if damaged, shows no seams and it timeless.