The Calentita food festival, a regular event in Gibraltar’s events calendar, returns this evening and tomorrow Saturday for its seventeenth edition. The event kicks off at 7pm today in the Landport Ditch car park with 26 food stalls and two nights of entertainment featuring dance, music and spoken word performances.

This is the first time the event is being held over two days. Organiser Owen Smith, from Word of Mouth, says the decision was motivated by two factors: “First, it’s more inclusive as it allows more members of our community to attend the event if we hold it on a Friday and on a Saturday. Second, given that it’s a lot of work for participants to set up the stalls, we want to see if it’s more worthwhile for people to take part if there are two days; they get two nights now instead of just a few hours.”

It’s also the first time the event is being held in Landport. Owen says it’s  a “really beautiful venue when it’s emptied out of cars”. He draws attention to the fact that the area is more enclosed than previous venues like the Boulevard and the Piazza so “It’s going to feel more like a festival.”

Asked about the success of the festival which, since 2007, has only been interrupted by COVID restrictions, Owen explains that it has become linked with the celebration of local culture: “The idea was to celebrate Gibraltarian identity through food and to celebrate all the different cultures that we have living in Gibraltar…Calentita is a really nice and accessible way to showcase that.”

“It’s easy to enjoy food, drink and good company—that’s another reason why it’s been successful,” he adds.

Each year brings new stalls and cuisines and 2026 is no exception. Visitors this weekend can enjoy Jamaican and Romanian food stalls, the ever-popular pinchito stall, a Moroccan stall, a “huge” paella, two Filipino stalls, a stall selling Llanito favourites and a cheese and wine stall, in addition to others. (See stall map below)