Even while studying art in college, Demi Natoli says she “always knew” hospitality was her calling, having worked in restaurants in her home state of Florida since she was a teen. “My formal bar education really began under Gui Jaroschy and Trevor Alberts, who were running Broken Shaker in Miami at the time and consulting on the tiki bar and punk venue I was helping open,” she says. “That sparked a deeper interest in craft cocktails and hospitality as a career rather than just a job.” From there she moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2016 to work with Strategic Hospitality, during which time she learned how to execute extensive cocktail menus in fast-paced, high-volume environments. Later that year she was offered a “dream opportunity” to work for Paul McGee at Lost Lake in Chicago, where she would spend the next few years immersing herself in tropical cocktails and elevated service—an experience that she says “deeply shaped [her] style and technical foundation.”

By the end of 2019, Natoli was back in Nashville and ready for a management role: she started as beverage manager for the hospitality group Call Mom, where she was responsible for the beverage programs across the Graduate Nashville hotel’s dining operations, including its stylish rooftop cocktail bar and restaurant White Limozeen. She came on as part of the opening team during an undoubtedly challenging time. “Navigating an opening after [a] tornado and during the height of Covid-19 meant rethinking many of our standard procedures and adapting in real time, which was both challenging and incredibly formative,” she says.

Appropriate for its location in Music City, White Limozeen’s cocktails ($12- $16) are “rooted in nostalgia and music,” designed to transport guests to a specific time, place, or memory, Natoli says. “I’m always thinking about how food memories translate into a glass.”