Founders Team

MOGU is a mixed family (Chinese-Indonesian-Dutch) owned restaurant.

Gus and Niek: "Having grown up in the Netherlands and being very close to our Indo-Chinese grandmother, food was always central when family came together!"

Gus: "I was bored with my mechanical engineering job in the Netherlands, so I went to explore Asia, which inhibits ~60% of the world's population. After a few months of traveling around Asia, I came to China and enrolled in a university to study the Chinese language. While becoming proficient in the language, I started applying for master's degrees and was lucky to get into Peking University to study Economics, and I took extra courses in Finance. During Peking University I started the Peking University boxing club and part-timed as PR-manager at a high-end night club. During this time I ate Malantang almost every day. I graduated with honors, and just a month after, COVID happened, and due to the harsh lockdown, I came back to Europe. After I left I was missing the food big time"

Niek: "I went to visit Gus in China in early 2019 and we ate plenty of Malatang and hot pot. One month later, I started studying hotel management at the Hotel Management School Maastricht. Two years later, during COVID, I went to Hong Kong for an exchange semester at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. This exchange semester made me fall in love with the beautiful and versatile Asian cuisine. In my final year of hotel management, Gus and I spoke a lot about his aspirations to open a malatang restaurant; I was immediately sold! In January 2023, I officially graduated from hotel management. The same week, I started building MOGU from scratch with a dream team."

Dana: "Gus kept saying that he missed the food so much. So we went to eat it in New York. I told Gus if you want to open a restaurant, I will put my career as a doctor on hold for a few months and help you get it off the ground!"

Gus: "I sold my previous business to fund this new endeavor. So in January 2023, we got the keys from this location in Amsterdam West, and with Dana and Niek onboard, and with all our combined experiences and connections, we had a dream startup team!