Christopher Joseph Marazzo did the unthinkable one Friday evening in October 2019. He left his bowl of pasta unfinished, and walked over to Rose Angelina Teresa Minutaglio’s booth in the back room at Forlini’s Italian restaurant in Lower Manhattan.
“She has this old world beauty, like a black-and-white photo,” said Mr. Marazzo, who turns 33 on Saturday. “She looks just like Sophia Loren.”
He often wrangled five to 15 friends to join him in his regular booth two Fridays a month while the singer Angelo Ruggiero belted out ’50s and ’60s tunes and Italian songs. The restaurant closed in 2022. (The painting of a mandolin and books, once above Mr. Marazzo’s booth, now hangs in the couple’s entryway.)
Oddly enough, that evening, Mr. Marazzo, who goes by Chris, mainly spoke to Ms. Minutaglio’s father, who was visiting from Austin, Texas, where she grew up.
“By the way, this is my daughter, Rose,” he recalled her father saying.
Mr. Marazzo, who had only learned her first name that evening, flung open the front doors after noticing they had left.
“Goodnight Rose!” he shouted, as she and her father waited for a cab.
“I was love struck,” said Mr. Marazzo, who is pursuing a master’s degree in computer science at Columbia and works as the senior investment strategist focusing on the housing market at Invictus Capital Partners. He graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from the College of William & Mary.
