The Order Food & Drink

The Restaurant

The Order Food & Drink occupies the lobby level of Hotel Vandivort, the 50-room boutique hotel that opened in a converted Masonic Temple on East Walnut Street in 2015 and effectively triggered the modern wave of downtown Springfield's restaurant scene. The dining room is a high-ceilinged Art Deco space with original 1906 mosaic tile, heavy walnut bar, and tufted leather banquettes along the windows facing Walnut Street. A separate cocktail lounge — the Vantage Rooftop — sits on the building's fifth floor with views over the Park Central Square skyline, and operates as a sibling programme to the ground-floor restaurant.

The cooking is modern Midwestern with a clear technical hand. The menu rotates seasonally on a short principle — roughly twenty dishes plus a tasting flight option — and leans heavily on Ozarks-region producers: pasture beef from Larry Schaeffer in Ash Grove, trout from the White River system, cheese from Goatsbeard Farm in Harrisburg, vegetables from Millsap Farms north of the city. Signatures have included a beef tartare with smoked egg yolk and crispy potato, a duck confit with stone-ground grits and pickled cherry, a pan-roasted trout with brown butter and almonds, and an Ozarks black walnut budino for dessert. The pastry programme under Kyle Davis has been highlighted by Feast Magazine as one of the strongest in the region.

The cocktail programme is the room's other signature — about thirty house cocktails built around small-batch bourbons, a serious agave selection, and an in-house barrel-aging programme. The wine list runs about 150 references with a deliberate focus on natural Italian, Burgundy at fair markups, and a rotating by-the-glass programme. Service is warm and intelligent without being formal — the captains know the food and the bartenders know the cellar. The Order is the room downtown Springfield uses when the evening needs to register as intentional but not stuffy, and the Hotel Vandivort lobby location makes it the default for any visitor staying within walking distance of Park Central Square.

What to Order

The kitchen's anchor is the Pork Steak, a 16oz Circle B Ranch shoulder cut over cauliflower purée and Cajun-grit succotash at $25; it is the most Ozarks plate on the menu and the one to order. Among the larger formats, the 12oz prime Ribeye with broccoli and chimichurri is $36 and the 6oz prime Filet with new potatoes, asparagus and béarnaise is $32. The Mountain Springs rainbow trout over linguini and caper-cream is $26, the better fish than the rasam-broth red snapper at $24. Start with the two U10 diver scallops on braised pork cheek and creamed corn at $15, or the three duck-confit croquettes at $8, which are the value play. The pesto gnocchi at $18 holds the vegetarian table. The $25 charcuterie board, three La Quercia meats and three local cheeses, is a fine bar order, but skip it as a starter if you have already ordered the scallops. A two-course dinner runs about $45 a head before the cocktail programme does its damage.