Kristina Gambarian had just moved into her new apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, only days before inviting her co-worker, Ayinde Adelaja Sankofa, over. It was early November 2019, and he had missed his train to Morristown, N.J., following one of their after-work walks to the station, and an Uber would have cost him more than $100.

Ms. Gambarian offered up her couch, which Mr. Sankofa would have to assemble. Over beers and bodega sandwiches, they stayed up late talking.

The two first met in March 2019 in the kitchen at the Legacy Records restaurant in Manhattan’s Hudson Yard, but wouldn’t become friendly until Mr. Sankofa, 25, returned to the United States in October after working for six months as a chef in Alba, Italy. Ms. Gambarian, 26, had been at Legacy Records for two years, starting on salads and appetizers, working her way up to plating for Mr. Sankofa’s pasta station.

Both enjoyed the camaraderie and intensity of working in the kitchen. Ms. Gambarian had immigrated to the United States in 2016 from Ukraine. In her hometown Cherkasy, she said her father opened several bake shops as well as a production facility, “so I always wanted to be a chef.”

At 17, Mr. Sankofa started as a waiter at Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen in Morristown, where he spent his teens, eyeing the pasta station for its adrenaline-inducing pace. He compared his appreciation for pasta to how one might watch a live jazz band.

“Some people like to look at the person playing the trumpet or the pianist,” Mr. Sankofa said, but he loved the drummer. “In the kitchen, the person on the pasta station is like the drummer.” He would travel to Piedmont, Italy, in 2016 to study at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners in Costigliole d’Asti.

At first, Mr. Sankofa tried to keep things professional, but as Ms. Gambarian helped him prep ingredients or clean seafood ahead of hectic shifts, he began to view her differently. It was during this period that he crashed at her apartment.

Their first date was at the Stairway to Heaven hiking trail in Vernon Township, N.J. Ms. Gambarian liked that Mr. Sankofa, who goes by AJ, drove from New Jersey to pick her up.

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That year they spent Thanksgiving together in Morristown, where Ms. Gambarian was first introduced to his family. They also spent Christmas together.

Their next milestone came during the pandemic. After they were furloughed at the restaurant in March 2020, Mr. Sankofa asked her to join him in Morristown. Ms. Gambarian kept her apartment “just in case,” she said, but they returned with a U-Haul truck in July to move her out.

At home together, Mr. Sankofa encouraged Ms. Gambarian to start baking. They started an Instagram under the name @babushkaspies, offering items like cheesecake and pear cobbler ahead of Mother’s Day. Mr. Sankofa delivered them, and many of those orders were from friends.

With her family in Ukraine, being embraced by his support system was important to Ms. Gambarian. Mr. Sankofa has only met her parents virtually with Ms. Gambarian present to translate.

“My family knows that AJ is taking really good care of me,” she said. “So they really appreciate the fact that his family decided to help and take care of me through the virus.”

By summer 2020, they opened ESO Artisanal Pasta selling handmade pastas, sauces and other imported goods within the Artist Baker in Morristown. The following year they opened a store front of their own, also in Morristown.

In September 2021, when their business was forced to close because of financial challenges, friends and family donated to their GoFundMe, raising more than $20,000 to reopen.

At the same time, Mr. Sankofa was an executive chef and Ms. Gambarian was a pastry chef, working to help open the Cree Wine Company, a wine bar in Hampton, N.J. This past February, they won a $10,000 grant for Black-owned businesses from the New York Jets’ partnership with Visa.

This year they competed on Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race,” making it to the season finale, which aired this past summer.

Mr. Sankofa proposed to Ms. Gambarian on the same hiking trail on Nov. 6, 2020, two years after their first date on the same day.

One year later, on Nov. 6, 2022, the couple were married. Mashall McFadden, the mother of Mr. Sankofa’s childhood friend, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church, officiated. A close friend of Ms. Gambarian ensured the Zoom call with her parents and best friend in Ukraine worked throughout the celebration.

Colonial Grill, a local food truck, provided wings, cheese steaks and burgers for the reception.

The couple also played a Ukrainian wedding game, where the bride and groom both bite into a piece of baked bread called korovai. Whoever bites the biggest piece would be “the leader” in their relationship, Ms. Gambarian said. Mr. Sankofa won, but, together, they agreed to meet in the middle, balancing work and love.