It is hard to know without images, but my feeling would be that if you have a beautiful table that you want to be the star of the show, you will want to make the rest of the room as subtle as possible. Id steer clear of similar materials. Art galleries are painted all white so that the artwork is displayed without competition from the rest of the building. The choice of material for your bench top might well take on a similar strategy.

I think charcoal would look very modern and would go well with your existing timber bench tops. But, consider taking a sample home with you and seeing how much dust accumulates on a daily basis and how often you need to clean it to avoid it looking dirty as darker surfaces can sometimes show up dust more than lighter colours.

Hi Sue. I think it depends a lot on how big and how light your kitchen is. Are the colours firm, or could you swap them, i.e. the white on the island with the wooden top, and the blue on the rest with white top? Try and picture the jarrah on all the tops, and work out whether you think it will be too much (if there is a lot of surface), or would work better as an accent. Best of luck.

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