England may be Rafael Mimoni’s adopted country but he is unreservedly proud to say his stonework is ‘made in England'.

It could well be 100 years or more before the Savoy undergoes another restoration programme like the one that has been carried out there over the past three years at a cost of £220million. Whenever it is, the masons who remove the Carrara and Marquina marble will find a message left for them by Rafi Mimoni, the owner of Mega Marble, who produced and fixed the stonework on the latest project.

All the stone for the interiors was fashioned in Mega Marble’s workshop in Park Royal and Rafi Mimoni is extremely proud of that, which is why he has left a message carrying the names of the masons involved in the project behind the stonework, along with some details about his company.

Usually, the masons whose skills play such a vital role in the quality of projects, just as they have over centuries, go unrecorded. Masons often admire the work of their predecessors as they restore and repair it without ever knowing who those predecessors were. Rafi wanted to pass on a little of the social history involved in a building as well-known and prestigious as London’s Savoy Hotel when future generations of masons carry out the next project many years in the future.

The restoration of the Savoy under the direction of designer Pierre-Yves Rochon creates cohesion from the previous mixture of Edwardian and Art Deco. At the heart is the Strand Lobby, with its new floor and columns of Carrara and Nero Marquina.

While the renovated lobby remains true to the original, the floor had to compensate for the eccentricities of an extension added in 1903, which was not straight, so the lobby twists unevenly, putting it 300mm out of true. Clearly that would show if the floor were made of square tiles, so every stone was individually cut at the Mega Marble factory to compensate for the distortion. Final adjustments were carried out by hand on site so the tiles appear to be in straight lines from every angle.

The six Carrara marble pillars sit on fielded panel bases of Nero Marquina and Carrara has been used for architraves and door linings.

The grandeur of the lobby is continued under a 4m arch of Carrara marble leading down steps of the same material to the Upper Thames Lounge where the lobby flooring design is continued with a centrepiece of Carrara, Nero Marquina and Crema Marfil. In the Thames Lounge the grand piano sits on a floor of Verde Guaremala. In The River Restaurant, Star Galaxy and Crema Marfil are used to create a diamond pattern on the floor.

Framing the doorway leading from the Upper Thames Lounge to the cloakroom areas is a stone architrave adorned with a curved feature. This was created out of a solid block of Carrara that was hollowed out and shaped in order to reduce the fixing weight while retaining the natural beauty of the stone.

Mega Marble were involved in all aspects of the stonework at the Savoy, working closely with the designers in selecting each of the significant blocks and slabs of stone from suppliers in Italy and Spain.

This included the selection of the Labradorite Madagascar slabs used to create the bar top in the Beaufort Bar, where the lighting emphasises the pearl-like translucence of the dark blue stone.

The Savoy was closed for three years while the work was carried out. Throughout that time television cameras periodically recorded the transformation and a programme about the re-opening of the hotel was broadcast on ITV 1 in December as the hotel once again started welcoming guests.

On the TV programme, John Ferrari, the Project Manager from main contractors Corus, is seen ruthlessly enforcing the strict health & safety codes among workers and expressing his grim determination to ensure what he describes as the biggest hotel refurbishment ever carried out in Europe meets its deadline for completion. As the pressure mounts to get the hotel finished in time to receive its first guests, he leads the cameras through the labyrinth of unfinished corridors and into the £10,000-a-night Royal Suite.

The Mega Marble workshop where the stone used in the project was produced did not make it on to the screen, but it is impressive. It is housed in a 2,000m2 modern unit on Premier Park Industrial Estate, conveniently close to the North Circular. Mega Marble moved there is 2006, investing in a Breton CNC workcentre and bridge saw and a Comandulli Edilux edge polisher. They installed water recycling equipment from Turrini Claudio and put waterwalls up around the area where the masons work. Pillar cranes mean the stone can be lifted easily from each piece of machinery to the next, reducing the risk of damage en route.

Rafi encourages his clients to visit his workshop so they can see for themselves where the slabs of stone that will be used on their projects are processed.

He realised his previous factory did not quite represent the image he wanted, which was why he moved. As he says, when he started supplying Candy & Candy they had a million pound turnover. Now it’s a billion and Rafi was aware by 2006 that if he wanted to continue to supply Candy & Candy and other customers at that high end of the market he needed to upgrade.

“It’s like a brain surgeon in rags,” says Rafi, “it doesn’t inspire confidence. This factory is our Versace suit. It’s as good as a factory in Italy. Whatever they do anywhere else in the world we can do here and we can very proudly put a tag on it saying ‘Made in England’. This is something very important for me. It’s something I can put back for all that England has done for me in the past 25 years.”

Rafi comes from Israel. He moved to the UK in 1985. He started fixing tiles and gradually expanded the business to the point where it is today employing more than 60 people.

His first tiling project was in stone and he soon identified the niche for the natural material and the preference for it at the top end of the market, both domestically and commercially.

He started trading as Mega Marble 18 years ago and in that time has supplied the stone for many prestigious projects. Most have not been quite as a high profile as the Savoy, but they have included Westfield Shopping Centre, Sofitel Hotel at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, The Langham Hotel, Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

Mega Marble’s current projects include work on the Spa, Signature Restaurant and Bassoon Bar at the new Corinthia Hotel in London, the entrance foyer at One Hyde Park and the new Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford with its views over the Olympic Park. Mega Marble are also working on a number of high end residential properties, as they always are.

“People can see the progress we have made and it gives them confidence in us,” says Rafi. “People want to work with companies they feel comfortable with – not just their capability to do the work but also their financial ability to see it through to the end.”

An important stage in Mega Marble’s growth was winning the contract for Westfield’s Eagle Centre in Derby in 2007. It was a major scheme and its successful completion opened the doors on more large-scale commercial projects for Mega Marble.

It came about because Mega Marble are one of DuPont’s fabricators for quartz Zodiaq and Zodiaq was chosen for surfaces in the bars, restaurants and reception area and for some of the floor and wall linings. DuPont supplied the names of three of their Zodiaq fabricators and Mega Marble won the contract.

“I think a lot of it’s personality,” says Rafi. “They decide they can work with you.”

There was only one moment of slight panic in Derby when one of the Directors of Westfield telephoned Rafi two days before the opening concerned that Mega Marble would not finish on time.

Rafi: “I said: It’s fine, it’s all in hand. He said: You need more people, you need to be here. I said: I am here.”

The fact he was on site and the work was finished on time without bringing in any extra people clearly made the right impression because Mega Marble were also subsequently involved in Westfield London at Shepherds Bush.

Customers will soon be able to watch the progress of their work through the factory on the company’s website. Each slab is already photographed and bar-coded as it enters the factory. The layout of the work is recored on the photograph and the progress of the slab through the factory is recorded. That information is going to be made available to customers so they can see where their project is in the production process.

The Eagle Centre demonstrated Mega Marble had the capacity, the human and financial resources, and the management to tackle a major project. It also gave Rafi the confidence to bid for more projects of that size and helped Mega Marble gain the other large scale commercial contracts they have won since then.

These larger projects are the latest step in the continuing expansion of Mega Marble, but the company have not abandoned the high end domestic work that their reputation is built on.

It is a particularly fashion conscious sector, so what, we wondered, are the latest fashions?

According to Rafi, engineered quartz products have passed their peak and in the consumer market people are returning to granite. He says five years ago 80% of the worktops he made were quartz. Now that is down to about 60%. “If you want it to look like natural stone why not have natural stone – it costs about the same but has a distinctive look and feel that man-made materials can’t reproduce.”

Not that he thinks the market for quartz will disappear, just that quartz and granite have developed their own niches that can co-exist without too much competition between them.

In bathrooms and for floors attention is moving away from plain limestones and returning to veined marble. Book-matched Carrara with light veining makes an attractive wall covering for a bathroom.

In the Langham Hotel, where Mega Marble fitted 215 bathrooms, Botticino was used with jet and gold St Laurent to impressive effect.

Rafi believes marble will enjoy a revival for a few years yet as an increasing amount of stone moves into bathrooms. And, of course, quartz will take its share of that market – it already is.

But whatever kind of stone people want, Rafi is confident there will always be a demand for it among discerning customers – and that London will always have those customers.

“Paris, New York, Hong Kong, London – these are the places millionaires want to be. We sit on a pot of money here. Everywhere else is talking about recession but London is still growing.”

The Russians are already adding to that pot and the new millionaires from China and India are moving in. Rafi is already talking to them.