The seven-course tasting is a pleasure, leading diners through miniaturized versions of many dishes on the menu. If only the path were more ambling — each course arrives bang on top of the next, without enough space for savoring. Clio’s service is generally excellent, but sometimes awkward. One night, after a server with a thick accent tells us about our dishes, another explains them again, trying to be helpful. On occasion, workplace dynamics are too much on display; customers likely get their fill of bickering at their own jobs. And, at a restaurant that aims so high with its food, misspellings really should not appear on the menu.

But the food can be wonderful. An early taste in the seven-course menu is Clio’s signature tomato-water martini, perfectly clear yet vividly capturing the essence of the fruit. It is garnished with basil oil, a caper berry, and a tiny, tomato-flavored popsicle. This nonalcoholic martini appeared on a greatest-hits menu Clio featured just before closing for renovations. That night it was more like a saltwater martini, followed by lackluster versions of other dishes. There was too much foam. The flavors were off. Now everything seems to be back in focus.

Also part of the tasting is one of Oringer’s best inventions — in fact, one of the best dishes in Boston — his cassolette. In its way, it’s a chowder: Milk is infused with sweet parsnips, touched with honey. Into this broth go lobster meat and uni, sea urchin roe, along with sea beans, jalapenos, and anchovies. Also in the mix are espelette pepper and Korean red pepper threads, crisped shallots, chives, and candied lemon. The dish is foamy and ethereal, but it’s a riot of flavors. Salt, heat, sugar, citrus, umami, the wild flavor of uni — “What’s in there?’’ you think after your first taste. A little bit of everything, casting a net around Asia and New England and pulling it tight.