In 2008, Hannah Selinger was a 27-year-old working as a beverage director at Momofuku — David Chang’s of-the-moment restaurant empire that at the point included raucous Noodle Bar, trendy Ssam Bar and fine dining Ko — when her boss called her into a private meeting.

Momofuku’s then-director of operations sat at her desk, leaning back in a chair and kicking up his Converse All-Star sneakers on some of her papers.

“Are you a chef-f—ker?” Selinger recalls him asking in her new book, “Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly” (Little, Brown and Company, out now). “You know, when I hired you, I got a call about you.”

In her memoir, Selinger paints a brutal portrait of her life working at some of the city’s trendiest restaurants during the aughts.

It was a particularly exciting time for dining in NYC — rock star chefs such as Chang, Mario Batali (Babbo) and Marc Forgione (Forge) mixed Michelin-quality food with downtown cool — but the scene was also fraught with misogyny, abuse and excess.

Speaking of working at Ssam Bar in the late aughts, Selinger, now 44, writes: “That was joy, it was power. It was information, it was sex, it was buzz, it was a feeling so distinct and alive that I couldn’t help wanting it again and again.

“The party never ended at Momofuku. ‘Turn the music UP,’ David Chang liked to say when walking into the dining room.”

But amidst the highs, there were ugly lows.

She recalls buying a bottle of Moscato for a Ko wine pairing one night, only to have Chang fly off the rails and scream at her “Who the f–k do you think you are?” in front of her staff. At other points, she writes, he said things like “I will f—ing scalp you. I will murder your family. You are bad at your job” to her or her colleagues.

“With Dave (or David, or Chang, alternating names, alternating moods), a bomb was always about to go off, or a bomb had always just gone off, or you were always ducking for cover from the shrapnel. His temper was riotous, his outbursts contagious. The kitchen and dining room could shake with the force of his wrath,” she writes.

(Chang has previously said that he can’t recall these specific incidents, but “they are entirely consistent” with his behavior at the time and that he is sorry. He declined to offer further comment on the matter.)

She’s not just critical of Chang but also Christina Tosi, the wildly successful Milk Bar founder who then worked as Momofuku’s pastry chef.

Selinger alleges that Tosi helped propagate the rumor that she was a “chef f—er” and created a petty high school atmosphere at work, pointedly baking birthday cakes for seemingly everyone but het

“[She was part of a leadership team that] wanted you to believe that they had your best interests in mind, when really they wanted you to fail,” she writes. “Momofuku systemically broke people down, and they did so on purpose, by making their staff feel unwanted.” (The Post has reached out to Tosi for comment.)

The “chef f—er” rumor sprang from a disturbing encounter Selinger had with pastry chef Johnny Iuzinni, when he was a brash, Ducati-riding dessert wunderkind at Jean-Georges, the haute flagship for famed French master Jean-George Vongerichten.

Selinger had scored a two week internship as a sommelier at Jean-Georges. On her first or second day, Iuzzini grabbed her from behind while she was working, she alleges, and invited her to meet him out at a club that evening.

They eventually ended up at his barebones apartment. Selinger asserts that she consented to sex but not the camera, already recording, “that appeared out of nowhere.”

“I looked up from the bed and was greeted by the cold, blank stare of a camera, and not of a partner,” she writes.

“If you don’t want your face in it, you can put a pillowcase over your head,” Selinger recalls him saying without putting the camera down.

In a statement to The Post, Iuzzini acknowledged having a “professional and personal relationship” with Selinger but said “there are many details in her story that are completely false and/or fabricated.”

In 2017, Iuzzini was accused of sexual harassment and abuse by four other former employees, including one who was 19 at the time of the encounter. In a statement at the time, he said some allegations were “inaccurate” and denied others, but noted that he was “deeply sorry to those who felt hurt.”

At that point, Iuzzini had appeared as a judge on “Top Chef” and was set to be a judge on ABC’s “The Great American Baking Show.” The network pulled the show in the wake of the allegations.

While most of the book focuses on Selinger’s interactions with her co-workers, she does dish on some of the customers she encountered.

She recalls waiting on Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Martin, Jay-Z and Beyonce at BLT Prime, where she worked from 20025 to 2007.

The high-wattage group ordered a $600 bottle of wine — a 1996 Latour — and a $300 Wagyu steak. Paltrow plunked down her black Amex to pay— and left a measly 10% tip.

Jimmy Fallon, she recalls, was a regular at BLT Prime and purported to be allergic to mushrooms. But she bizarrely questions whether this is true or a lie “to save face,” for disliking a popular food.

Selinger also waited on Tom Brady and Gisele and BLT Prime, when they were first starting to date. She recalled them in throes of PDA throughout the meal and having to awkwardly interrupt them.

“They would not stop making out … I had to break them apart,” she told The Post. “This is also before he stopped eating everything normal.”

Despite her negative experiences, Selinger, who is now based near Boston and working as a writer, insists there’s a lot she cherishes about her time in hospitality.

“I don’t want to demonize restaurants,” she said. “I still love restaurants and I love dining out.”

She just wishes those in leadership positions treated their employees better instead of like easily disposable at-will help. It’s her hope the book will draw attention to some of the issues in the hospitality industry.

“So much of the accountability that so many of us have hoped for as we have peeled ourselves back has simply not arrived,” she writes.

“We have watched Mario Batali walk out of courtrooms, ready to start anew. We have watched David Chang accept corporate deal after corporate deal.”