It's a cafe with excellent coffee in the AM hours, a bistro with good wine and occasional music in the evening. ERIK PETERSEN visits Belle and Jerome

Up front at Belle and Jerome, near the jazz pianist playing and singing in a corner, a group of four is having a few glasses of wine near the front window as the sun goes down.

Beyond them, a couple sit at a table for two, having a couple small plates of food and a couple cocktails as they indulge in what is clearly a romantic evening out.

In back, around a big table, there's a larger group of friends who are clearly in for the long haul - after the full dinner, comes dessert.

And in the midst of all this sit Tom Vincent and Rob Darby.

Belle and Jerome is their place and this - a packed Tuesday night, music, some people having a full meal and others nibbling or perusing the wine menu - is just what they want.

"It's designed to be a place that you use as a local," Tom said. "You get to know the staff, the staff knows you.

"You walk in, recognise the faces - it's a bistro or a local bar."

Well, technically a couple bars. This Belle and Jerome incarnation, on High Road in Beeston, is the second. The first sits on Central Avenue in West Bridgford. The newer Beeston Belle's a bit bigger, but both boast similar menus and the same focus on a relaxed bistro atmosphere from breakfast to post-dinner.

That focus rests largely on the drinks. In the evening, that means a wine menu that's interesting, witty and, as Tom puts it, "not poncey". It offers a mixture of new- and old-world wines. And rather than adhering strictly to categories, the menu's divided up into educational "If you like this, you might also like ... " categories. The Pinot Grigio list, for example, includes just a couple Pinot Grigios and a handful of others, like a lovely little Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, that hit many of the same notes. Descriptions also benefit from a bit of personality - one Sicilian red is described as "pure hedonism ... a wine to make your table party central."

Meanwhile, morning beverage options in Beeston are largely overseen by manager Adriana Gosuen. Adriana, who formerly worked at the Bridgford Belle, had an impressive coffee-making CV before she came to Belle and Jerome. In 2005, while working in the cafe at the flagship Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge, she was named UK barista of the year.

In head chef Karl King's kitchen, food receives a similarly exacting treatment. The fish comes from Beeston landmark Fred Hallam fishmongers, just down the High Road. (The smoked salmon arrives as fresh fish and gets smoked on premises. And when you bite into it, you forget all about the papery smoked fish on offer at the supermarket.) The beef comes from even closer - JA Barnsdale butchers, almost next door. And when you bite into the steak, you discover that the cow gave its life for a noble, noble enterprise.

Put it together and you get a venue that's the sort of place Tom and Rob would want to visit if they didn't own it. The friends, who met about two decades ago in Nottingham University's Derby Hall, have been in the Nottingham food-and-drink business since shortly after graduating. They've always run the sorts of places they'd enjoy themselves - and over the years, that's meant some different places.

Their first venture was the Old Peacock pub on Ilkeston Road. They weren't much removed from being students themselves, so running a student pub made sense. They put more staff behind the bar and, in their first 24 days, sold as much beer as the previous owner had sold in the previous year.

They also had the sort of "ingenious" ideas that only twentysomething blokes not long from uni days can have. When the beer garden needed tiling, they brought in the uni rugby team and paid them in beer and food. (The sensible caveat was that the hearty meals and free-flowing drinks were only offered after the day's work was done.) After that came city centre cocktail bar Cucamara, another place aimed squarely at students.

Then they took over Ye Olde Salutation Inn, Maid Marian Way - a departure into more office-worker clientele and pub food.

"We've always done the place we want to do," Rob said. "The Peacock was great fun. With Cucamara, we were still in that student zone."

When they took over the Salutation, they were getting into a different time in their lives. And that happened again with Belle and Jerome.

"And this is where we'd go now," Rob said. "We like nice food, we like nice wine ... we like being respected as customers."