Culantro is on Woodward Avenue. (Facebook photo)
The downtowns in Ferndale and Royal Oak are flush with restaurants. Some come and go.
Here's the latest inbound one: The family-owned Peruvian restaurant Culantro opened Wednesday in the old Southern Belles' Bistro space at 22939 Woodward Ave in Ferndale, reports Mark Kurlyandchik of the Detroit Free Press:
Physically, the layout hasn't changed much from its predecessor. There are still just a few high-top tables near the front window and nine booths – 48 seats in all – that share the slender restaurant's 1,600 square feet with an open kitchen, now anchored by a charcoal rotisserie oven imported from Peru that turns out incredibly juicy chicken seven days a week.
Culantro is the brainchild of Peru native Betty Shuell. Shuell owned a restaurant in Ecuador before immigrating to the United States in 2000, where she fell into a career as a nurse.
