Services
Restaurant and cafe table tops
Table tops cut to your bases, with the edge profiled all the way round and the fixing centres drilled to the plate you already own. Round and oval tops are cut on the CNC.
- 5.0from 26 Google reviews
- 25-year material · 5-year workmanship
- Fitted 5-10 working days from template
A table top is the opposite of a worktop
A worktop has a wall behind it, cabinets under it and a scribe to hide the difference between the drawing and the room. A table top has none of those. Every edge is visible, every edge gets touched, and the only thing holding it up is a base plate roughly the size of a dinner plate.
That changes where the work is. On a kitchen the hard part is the geometry of the room. Here the geometry is simple and everything lives in the edge and the fixing: how the profile feels under a forearm through a whole meal, how the underside is finished where a knee meets it, and whether the drilled centres line up with the base you already have.
It also changes the quantities. Tables come in numbers, and a set has to match, which means nesting them out of the same slab run rather than ordering them as they are needed.
At a glance
- Shapes
- Square, rectangular, round and oval
- Curves
- Cut on the CNC, not by hand
- Fixing
- Drilled to the base plate you own
- Matching a set
- Nested from one slab run
Fitted 5–10 working days from template. Deposit at template, balance before installation.
What is involved
From your base plate to a set of tops
Four things decide the price of a table order, and the shape is not one of them.
- 01First
Bring us a base, or its drawing
The fixing centres are drilled to the plate you already own. One physical base, or a dimensioned drawing of the plate, settles it in a minute. A photograph with a tape measure lying next to it usually does not.
- 02At quotation
Settle every size at once
Tops are nested onto slabs, so ten 700mm rounds and ten 800mm rounds are different amounts of material rather than different by a tenth. Deciding all the sizes together is what keeps the waste, and therefore the price, down.
- 03Samples free
Choose the edge, then feel it
This is the detail people notice, because a forearm rests on it through a whole meal. Order samples with the profile you are considering and put your arm on one before you commit to a set of twenty.
- 04Workshop
Cut, profile and drill
Straight cuts and curves are machined, every edge is profiled and polished, and the fixing holes are drilled to your centres. Round and oval tops go on the CNC so the curve is true the whole way round rather than fair in places.
- 05Last
Delivered, or mounted to the bases
A set of tops is usually a delivery rather than an installation, unless you want them mounted. Either way they travel protected and separated, because stone against stone in a van is how edges get chipped.
The parts that decide it
What makes a good table top
None of this shows in a photograph and all of it shows at the table.
Every edge is exposed
There is no wall to scribe to and nothing to hide behind, so the edge profile is not a detail, it is most of the finished object. The top arris, the face and the bottom arris are all polished, because all three get touched.
The base plate sets the drilling
Fixing centres vary between manufacturers, and between models from the same manufacturer. We drill to the plate in front of us. If you are buying new bases, buy them first, or at the very least get the drawing before the stone is cut.
Weight is a real constraint
A 30mm round in stone is heavy, and the base has to be rated for it as well as wide enough not to tip. A mitred edge on a 20mm slab gives the visual thickness of a heavier table without the mass, which is often the better answer in a room where tables get moved.
A set has to match
Engineered stone is produced in batches and granite varies slab to slab. Tops ordered at once come off the same run and read as a set. The same tops ordered across a year do not, and the difference is obvious when they are lined up in one room.
Round and oval are machine work
A curve cut by hand is fair in places and flat in others, and the eye finds that immediately on a circle. Curves go on the CNC from the drawing, which is also what makes a set of rounds identical rather than merely similar.
Outdoor tables are a different specification
Sunlight and frost rule some materials out, and porcelain and sintered stone are the ones built for that. If tables are going outside, say so at the quotation stage, because it narrows the choice before colour does.
Before you order
What we need from you, and what is not included
A table order goes wrong in the same two places every time: the base and the batch.
Have this ready
- One base, or a dimensioned drawing showing the plate and its fixing centres
- Every size and shape in the order, decided together rather than in stages
- The edge profile chosen, ideally after handling a sample
- Whether any of the tops are going outside
- Somewhere to receive and store them: stone tops are heavy and they stack badly
- Access for delivery, including any stairs between the door and the room
What we do not do
- Supply table bases, columns or feet
- Rate or certify a base for the weight of a stone top
- Cut a top to fit a base we have never seen or been given a drawing of
- Promise a batch match on tops added to a set later
- Re-drill fixing holes in a top that is already finished
Questions
Restaurant table tops: the questions we get asked
If yours is not here, ring and ask. You will get a straight answer rather than a call-back from a salesperson.
Can you make round table tops?
Yes. Round and oval tops are cut on the CNC from the drawing rather than shaped by hand, which is what makes a curve true all the way round and a set of them identical to each other. Hand-cut curves look fine on their own and wrong side by side.
Will the tops fit my existing bases?
They will if we drill to the plate. Bring us one base, or a dimensioned drawing of it, and the fixing centres are machined to match. Fixing patterns are not standardised across manufacturers, so this is the one thing we will not work out from a description.
How thick should a restaurant table top be?
Both 20mm and 30mm work. The thicker slab reads as a more solid table and weighs accordingly. A mitred edge on 20mm gives you the same visual thickness with less mass, which matters if the tops get moved to reconfigure the room.
Can I add matching tables later?
We can cut them, but we cannot promise the batch will match. Engineered stone moves between production runs and granite varies slab to slab. If you expect to expand, order the extra tops with the first set and store them.
Where this happens
Restaurant table tops in your part of London
Twelve neighbourhoods whose housing stock throws up this job most often. Each page covers what restaurant table tops actually involves in that stock: the access, the era of the building and what that does to the work.
These twelve are a sample, not a coverage boundary. We work in 723 Greater London neighbourhoods and out into Surrey, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Essex.
Reviews
5.0 from 26 Google reviews
Every one of these is on our Google profile under the reviewer’s own name. Nothing here is written by us, and the link goes straight to the source.
Lovely team, business and quality motivated, prompt delivery with installation. Affordable prices. Wide range of worktops available. High recommendation
Loreta Skalisiene
Google review
Great service. Super quick and easy communication. I love my new worktop 🥹🥹
Sara Arghir
Google review
Professional, polite and friendly service. Very pleased with finished product.
costas andrews
Google review
Next
What usually happens either side of this
Every job runs through more than one of these. Follow the thread rather than guessing which order things go in.
Next step
Send us the kitchen and we will price it properly
Plans, a sketch or photographs with rough run lengths is enough to start. Nothing is payable until we template.