Islas de Gigantes Scallop Festival & Fishing Community Experience

The Gigantes Scallop Festival is the annual fiesta of the fishing barangays of Islas de Gigantes — a celebration of the shellfish that put this remote cluster of islands on the Philippine culinary map and provides livelihoods for hundreds of fishing families. The event combines a genuine community fiesta atmosphere with the best scallop eating available anywhere in the Western Visayas.

The Gigantes scallop is not an ordinary scallop. Raised in suspended nets in the clean, cold waters of the Sibuyan Sea at depths of 8-15 metres, the shellfish grow larger and develop more complex flavour than their counterparts in warmer or more nutrient-depleted waters. The distinctive sweetness and firm texture of a grilled Gigantes scallop has attracted Manila chefs, food journalists, and seafood tourists to what was previously a purely local product — and the festival celebrates this transformation while ensuring the community remains its primary beneficiary.

The cook-off sees local families set up stalls cooking their signature scallop preparations: grilled with garlic butter and cheese; poached in coconut milk; steamed with ginger and spring onion; baked with a chorizo crumb. The judging panel includes guests, and tasting all entries is both encouraged and strategically advisable. The scallop farm boat tour in the afternoon shows guests how the aquaculture operation works — suspended net cages visible just below the surface, tended by farmers in outrigger bancas who harvest by hand.