Duomo to Santa Croce, Florence Gets a Desi Night

Florence is a city that three million tourists visit every year, and somewhere in between the Uffizi crowds and the David selfie lines, there's a resident South Asian community that's easy to miss. The University of Florence attracts Indian students, the European University Institute in nearby Fiesole brings in South Asian researchers and academics, and the study abroad industry that's essentially Florence's second economy creates a constant churn of international students, some of them desi.

The format from New York: real contestants go on live dates on stage while the room watches and reacts. Afterward, the whole crowd mingles. In Florence, this format is designed to concentrate the scattered desi community into one room for one night, creating connections that the apps and expat mixers never deliver.

The leather goods industry in Santa Croce and the broader Tuscan manufacturing sector employ South Asian workers. The restaurant scene includes a handful of Indian places near San Lorenzo market. The Indian community exists across the city but doesn't cluster in one neighbourhood the way it does in Rome's Esquilino or Milan's Porta Venezia. That dispersal makes a gathering event more necessary, not less.

Florence's cultural calendar is packed, from Calcio Storico to art exhibitions to the wine festivals in the surrounding Chianti hills. But nothing on that calendar speaks to South Asian singles. This show fills a specific gap in a city that has everything except this.

Waitlist is open. Florence is part of our Italian tour plans. Get on the list or apply to be a contestant.