What a difference a year and a half can make. When I last visited Seasons, the fine-dining restaurant at the Seventh Mountain Resort, I came away very disappointed. Although the food was generally quite good, the service — when it was there at all — was inexperienced, inattentive and uneducated. And the timing of dishes from the kitchen was inconsistent at best.

I returned for dinner a couple of weeks ago and was delighted to discover not only that service glitches were a thing of the past, but the entire staff showed a knowledge and professionalism that previously had been in short supply. The restaurant has improved its grade from a C+ in 2008 to an A- today.

My dining companion and I were immediately greeted by a hostess, who sat us with menus and water. An experienced waiter brought a basket of warm bread with a delicious tomato compote, took our food order and made an enlightened recommendation from the wine list.

Chef O.J. Robinson demonstrated considerable creativity in his Pacific Northwest menu, although we both agreed that the dishes could have been fine-tuned.

We started with a peppery calamari appetizer, served with a remoulade sauce; I would have preferred a different breading than Graham crackers, which put it too far on the sweet side for my taste.

As an entree, I had a grilled chicken in sage butter, with lots of roasted garlic and onions; it would have been better had it not been so heavily salted. My friend chose a wild-game meat loaf, a blend of ground venison, wild boar and buffalo served on kale. A brown gravy reduction didn’t add a lot of flavor to a dish that bordered on bland; I wonder if a bearnaise might have been more successful.

Both entrees were served with asparagus and an au-gratin blend of white potatoes and butternut squash.

Former executive chef John Martin, who was hired to turn Seasons’ fortunes around in 2008, deserves a lot of credit. “I knew it would be fraught with hassles in the beginning,” said Martin. “But that’s what I do. I go in and fix restaurants.”

Seasons , 63136 S.W. Century Drive (Seventh Mountain Resort), Bend; 541-693-9143, www.seventhmountain.com. Appetizers $8 to $12, entrees $14 to $27. Breakfast and dinner every day.

— John Gottberg Anderson