It sometimes depends on what you want to be the focal point, ie what catches your eye when you enter the room. Dark will be the dominant feature (and pretty practical although harder to keep wipe marks off if strong light sources are nearby) and give a great contrast.
Most people don't realise why, but colour schemes work better when there are three colours. The dark will give you this as you can then accent with a wall or splash back colour. In the below photos you can see which part catches your eye first by the colours we've chosen.
In your layout, if you go for a lighter colour your timber is the dominant colour and there is no uniformity to the shape other than the overheads. It may end up looking busy.
Looking at the size of the room, having the colour only on the benchtop will give the
appearance of length and make the room
feel bigger. If you take it up the wall this reduces the length proportion to the eye.
A glass splashback can be tinted to any paint colour and allows a silver look like your stainless steel or any feature colour you like..... either that or use a stainless steel mosaic like we have in the last picture.
Here a couple of examples of some of our projects....
Cheers
