Back when Robert Pantusa was still slaving over a hot stove at Osteria Giotto — and dealing with the kitchen, staff, suppliers, inspectors, clients, and everything else that went into running one of Montclair’s most popular Italian restaurants — he told an interviewer that he didn’t have to check the night’s receipts to know how many dinners had been served.

“I just know how tired I am at the end of the night,” Pantusa said in late 2015, which turned out to be less than a year before he and his business partner, friend and fellow chef, Luca Valerin, closed the Midland Avenue restaurant in July 2016. Pantusa and Valerin were often tired over the dozen years of pleasing large and demanding dinner crowds at Osteria Giotto. So, when they were looking for another venture together, they opened the more modest Café Giotto a year later on nearby Church Street, which remains open to this day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.