Research on expatriate consumer behavior suggests that expatriates can be attracted to host country gastronomy, but sometimes they also suppress themselves from engaging with it. To shed light on these inconsistencies, this study draws on cross-cultural adjustment literature and social identity theory to explore under what circumstances expatriates increase their tendency to visit restaurants offering host country cuisine. To test the proposed model, a survey was conducted among 289 expatriates living in the six countries of the Greater Middle East. The data were analyzed by means of confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression. The findings show that general adjustment is a positive predictor of more frequent visits to local restaurants. However, the findings also indicate that this relationship is conditioned by an expatriate’s identity projects which are associated with cultural integration, cosmopolitanism, and international experience. Overall, novel extensions to the literature that investigates an expatriate’s engagement with a host country’s food and gastronomy is provided.

关于外籍人士消费行为的研究表明，外籍人士可以被吸引到举办国美食，但是有时他们也压制自己参与美食活动。为了阐明这些矛盾之处，本研究借鉴了跨文化调整的文献和社会认同理论，以探索在何种情况下外籍人士增加其访问提供东道国美食的餐厅的倾向。为了检验提出的模型，对居住在大中东六个国家的289名外籍人士进行了调查。通过验证性因素分析和层次回归分析数据。调查结果表明，总体调整是对当地餐馆访问频率提高的积极预测。然而，研究结果还表明，这种关系是由与文化融合，世界主义和国际经验相关的外籍人士的身份项目所决定的。总体而言，本文提供了新颖的文献扩展，以调查外籍人士与东道国的食品和美食的交往。