Walnut fades as it ages. You have to love that. It’s also a current fad and you have to love it even when the fad is over, because you will pay a hefty upcharge for it.

My fall back will be cherry. The only thing with cherry is that I'm not sure I like the reddish orange it turns to after awhile.

Walnut is beautiful, have you considered adding it to your kitchen as a counter or inside your cabinets? Our cabinets white on the perimeter black island with the insides of the lowers are all walnut. I smile every time I open them and see the beautiful wood. Also used walnut for counters in the laundry room and uppers shelfs in the walk in pantry. It was a bit of a splurge, but not excessive. We used a mill in Michigan that provided us a level of service and expertise of a bygone era.

We didn't do our whole kitchen in walnut... it was cost prohibitive, and with my cherry stained oak flooring (that we are eventually going to have refinished to a more natural color) I thought it was going to be a total overload of wood in my kitchen. So our cabinetry is actually painted maple and maple faced plywood. Our island top is solid walnut, and we have some places in the kitchen with thin walnut faced plywood. I also have a stand alone cabinet (not pictured) made of solid walnut and some walnut faced plywood. My husband designed and built every bit of cabinetry (and the island top with waterfall edge) himself. He has some nice tools and great skills. :)
I can tell you that it is BY FAR his favorite wood to work with. It cuts nice and clean unlike many hardwoods. The pictures you see of the walnut in my kitchen were finished (by me) with a Waterlox finish... I wanted the protection from water because of the sink in the island. My walnut cabinet that is nearby but not shown here is finished with just a clear stain polyurethane... it's the same warm color when finished that way, but it's a softer look, not quite as shiny.
My cabinet that is all walnut has been VERY stable. I've had it for a couple of years now and it hasn't had any noticeable shifting or movement in the wood. Of course, my hubby built it right with floating panels (it's shaker style doors) dove tail joints, some biscuit joints... all that good old woodworking stuff that holds up beautifully over time. Island is over a year old now, also very stable. There's been a little more movement with our maple stuff. (That's ok with us, we don't mind some of the paint cracking between joints, to us it shows that it's real wood and part of the charm)
I actually prefer walnut that shows the color variations and a lot of grain movement, and I don't like it when all of the boards are evenly colored and very straight grained. When you get those creamy white color variations in the raw wood, it reads golden when you put a clear finish on it... I think it's stunning! But everyone's taste is different and if you're working with a cabinet maker (as opposed to literally picking out your own wood, board by board, or the plywood sheet by sheet like we did) then you need to be clear about which look you are striving for with Walnut. It can look either very refined or rather rustic depending on the boards you choose.

I have unstained walnut cabinets in my kitchen and still like them after a few years. You have to like the look of faded walnut--it's a bit orangey!

It looks nice with the cherry stuff I have, but if you don't like the cherry's orange, you might not like the walnut's. It's almost the same orange, just striped in with the darker grain.