I would personally go for the wooden one to introduce some warmth to the room as you already have stone cabinets, brick work and black cooker. It's hard to advice when I can't see the actual wood colour but its sounds like you have ann urban chic kitchen interior so a contemporary white quartz top feels too modern to go with the brick work. GOOD LUCK.

By updating the worktop it really makes a difference to the kitchen and gives it a 'fresh' look. It looks great!

I wouldn't change the worktop to white sparkle, it won't go with cream units. You could go with a grey tone to match the flooring and draw it all together. I think you may struggle with a grey tone that's going to work well with the units. Creams and beige's are hard to match with a grey. This is the quick step Livyn Canyon oak grey This is the same in Smoked Oak Lastly Black Oak, which suits the units a lot better and goes with the work top. It does have grey tones, but obviously retains the brown. You can then grey the walls which will bring it all together. I'd take a drawer front off or even a small cupboard door and then take it along to the flooring shops so that you can see what will go with the kitchen.

I think you've been given bad advice by the wood staining company. I have a wooden worktop in one of my rentals, so, I need to make that look good every time someone new moves in. It's a standard wood block worktop. It used to be a pale to mid tone colour. I decided that it would look a little more contemporary to go dark to match new flooring that I put in. I washed it down with meths to start with to remove as much of the old stain as possible and then let it dry for a couple of days. I then sanded it back down ( not easy around the sink, but do'able ). I then put on a new dark stain and oil, Osmo tint ( Terra ). Sorted and looks great. It was originally this colour, then faded due to the glass roof:- This is it sanded back, re-tiled and prepped:- As you see it's much lighter. It then got stained and oiled twice:- I must confess, that Mrs Math did the brunt of that project, she did all the tiling and stain / oil, I just did a bit of sanding one day and then went off to another job. Well done Mrs Math!