Food plays an essential role in the lives of refugees, serving as a crucial link to their homeland and a means to establish a sense of belonging in their new environment. This dual role of food is particularly evident at Restaurant A Beautiful Mess (ABM), located within the asylum seekers centre (AZC) Oog in Al in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Operated almost exclusively by AZC residents, ABM provides a space where both asylum seekers and Dutch locals can come together, bridging a gap between different cultural backgrounds through shared food practices. This research explores how ABM facilitates a sense of belonging among AZC residents by examining the communicative role of food rituals. Here, achieving a sense of belonging is seen as a two-way process, requiring adaptation from both Dutch locals and AZC residents and their respective cultures, in which food practices are used to illustrate this dynamic interaction. This is done using qualitative methods, including 2.5 months of participatory observation and several in-depth interviews. The findings reveal the complex, multilayered role of food practices in the lives of refugees and demonstrate the highly relevant communicative functions of these practices.