Kitchen Sinks - draining options

When it came to selecting fixtures for my new kitchen, I knew right from the outset that I wanted a stainless steel undermount sink - and now that the design includes a scullery I will actually have two. The main sink will be used for washing dishes, and the other smaller one will be used in the prep area.

Traditionally, most kitchens feature a double-bowl sink with drainer. But as most of us use a dishwasher now, is a double bowl really necessary? In fact if I'm washing the odd thing by hand, I usually wash and rinse as I go, so I really don't need a double bowl. So I have decided to go with one extra big bowl instead. We are getting a 90cm freestanding oven, so having a sink large enough to hold the extra wide trays, racks, etc makes a lot of sense.

The big question for me is the drainer. I have been looking at lots of different kitchen designs and noticed that most undermount sinks that are installed into stone benchtops don't include a drainer. So where do you leave the dishes to dry?

I didn't want a stainless steel drainer attached to the sink because it would take up too much room and I wanted the marble to be the hero in the kitchen, not the sink/drainer, so my first thought was to have a recessed drainer, where the stone is cut away so the draining area is slightly lower than the surrounding bench top. You can also have grooves cut into the stone to act as a drainer as well:

Drainer carved into stone

But I thought of another idea: I could get a sink that comes with an optional draining tray that sits onto one half of the sink. It can be removed or left in place as needed.

Imagine this sink as a single bowl

There are a number of contenders that I have been looking at, including this one from Blanco:
 
I would then use it's smaller cousin as a prep sink in the scullery so it all goes together. Would I miss having that second bowl? I don't think so.

Now all I need to do is decide on the tap. I like both of these beauties from English Tapware -  they include an optional pull-out spray rinse which is great for rinsing off large trays, filling pots or tall vases, or in fact cleaning out the sink itself. Whichever one I choose I'm selecting the pewter finish and it looks really good with either marble or stainless steel benchtops.

I think I've covered just about everything now. Oh, and back to the A/C, a rep from Daikin has cast his eyes over the latest house plans. He is going to propose the best system for our needs - let's hope it's not too expensive!