Should You Get a Sintered Stone or Marble Dining Table?

Most people walk into a furniture shop assuming marble is the expensive, premium choice and sintered stone is the cheaper copy. On our own price list it is the other way round. The Naas table in 1.6m costs S$899 with a marble top and S$1,199 with a sintered stone top, on the same frame.

Same frame, two topsWhat the top adds to the price

The three 1.6m tables we sell with either top. Click a table to see every size.

Table, 1.6m	Marble	Sintered stone
Naas	S$899	S$1,199 +S$300
Wex I	S$729	S$799 +S$70
Caro (gold stand)	S$599	S$719 +S$120

That price gap is a clue to the first question you should ask about any "marble" table, which we come back to below.

Sintered stone vs marble: the short version

What happens with chilli, soy sauce and a steamboat?

This is where the two are furthest apart. Marble is mostly calcite, and acid dissolves calcite. Lime juice on a plate of fried rice, a splash of vinegar from the dumpling dip, red wine: each one leaves a dull mark where it sat. It is not a stain you can scrub off, because the surface itself has been eaten away slightly. Oily, dark food (curry, chilli oil, dark soy) can also soak in and leave a shadow, especially on a white top.

Sintered stone is made by pressing mineral powder under enormous pressure (Dekton's press is rated at 25,000 tonnes) and firing it. It ends up close to non-porous, so the same spills sit on top until you wipe them. On HardwareZone's sintered stone thread, one owner says they cook noodles and put the pot straight on the table; another says they no longer bother with a tablecloth or coasters.

For a steamboat, either top needs a heat mat under a portable gas or induction burner. Sintered stone handles heat better, but a burner sitting in one spot for two hours is not something we would test on any table.

The edge problem nobody puts in the product photos

Sintered stone's weakness is impact, not stains. The slab is hard but brittle, so a sharp knock on a corner from a chair back, a dropped pot or a child's toy can take a chip out of the edge. On many sintered tops the marble pattern is printed on the surface rather than running through the slab, so a chip shows plain stone underneath.

Three things reduce the risk: rounded corners, a thicker slab (ask the shop how thick it is; thin slabs chip more easily), and lifting the table rather than dragging it.

Rounded corners Lacasa Sintered Stone Dining Table

You choose rounded or square corners on the product page. Rounded corners are less prone to chipping and gentler around small children. Black or gold stand, 1.6m to 2m, and the 1.6m is in ready stock.

From S$899 View the Lacasa

To be fair to sintered stone: none of the owners on the HardwareZone thread we read reported a chip, including one who has used theirs for more than five years. That is a small sample, not proof either way.

Is the "marble" on that table actually marble?

Back to the price clue. Natural marble is quarried, cut and polished, and a 1.6m slab of it is not cheap. A table sold with a marble top at a lower price than the sintered version is worth a question. There are three things a shop might mean by "marble":

• Natural marble: real quarried stone. Everything in the tables above applies.
• Cultured marble: marble dust bound with resin. It looks similar but behaves differently, especially with heat. We label ours this way, for example the Johan and Circus.
• Marble-look sintered stone: sintered stone printed with marble veins. Some tables sold as "marble look" are this.

You can narrow it down in a showroom:

Which size fits your dining area?

Allow about 60cm of table edge per person, and about 90cm between the table and the wall so chairs can pull out. That means the room needs the table's length plus 1.8m one way, and its width plus 1.8m the other. A 1.6m by 80cm table needs a dining area of about 3.4m by 2.6m to seat six comfortably.

So which should you buy?

Can't decide? Choose a table that comes in both and see the two tops side by side at our showroom.

Marble or sinteredNaasFrom S$659 · 1.2m to 2mView table →

Marble or sinteredWex IFrom S$729 · 1.6m to 2mView table →

Marble or sinteredCaroFrom S$419 · 1.4m to 1.8mView table →

The same choice comes up for coffee tables, where spills are rarer but feet and mugs are not: see sintered stone coffee tables and marble coffee tables.

Before you order a stone table

• Ready stock or pre-order. The Lacasa in 1.6m and the Wex I in 1.6m with a white marble top are listed as ready stock. Most other sizes and tops are made to order and take about 6 to 8 weeks to reach Singapore, so allow for that if you are timing it with a move.
• The lift. If a top can't go up in the lift, it is carried up the stairs at an extra charge.
• Returns. Defective or damaged items can be exchanged free within 7 days. See our return and refund policy for the rest.