From their research, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) discovered that the 13 saltiest main meals contained more than the maximum recommended daily intake of 6g of salt.Fast food outlets were also analysed.
Charities are urging chefs to use less salt in their food.
The survey measured the salt content of 664 main meals from 29 popular High Street and celebrity restaurants, fast food and cafes chains.
Analysis showed that 347 meals had more than 2.4g of salt per portion, which would earn them a red traffic light label for salt content.
A selection of main meals from six celebrity chef restaurants were analysed for their salt content including Brasserie Blanc (Raymond Blanc), Dinner (Heston Blumenthal), Frankies (Marco Pierre White), Jamie's Italian (Jamie Oliver), Fifteen (Jamie Oliver) and Savoy Grill (Gordon Ramsay).
From the celebrity chef restaurants tested, on average Jamie's Italian had the highest level of salt in their three dishes while Heston's Dinner was shown to have the lowest values of salt, all below 1.5g of salt per dish.
Celebrity chef restaurants and High Street chain restaurants both came out higher for salt content than cafes and fast food chains, partly due to the larger portion sizes.
Daily dose
In the fast food category, meals from McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut and Dominos were all analysed as part of the survey.
Pizza Hut fared worst with 93% of their dishes analysed containing more than 2.4g of salt. Subway fared best with less than one in five meals getting a red traffic light label for salt, although their portions were smaller.
In the 20 saltiest meals from fast food outlets, a regular BBQ meat feast pizza from Pizza Hut was found to contain 6.36g of salt while Domino's pepperoni passion pizza contained 4.8g.
The survey found an average of 3.1g salt per meal - half a person's daily recommended amount of salt.
Alongside the analysis of dishes, Cash undertook a survey of public opinion on salt which found that 54% of 1,100 people surveyed found restaurant meals too salty, and nine out of 10 people believed that restaurants and cafes should let them choose if they want to add salt to their meal or not.
Health impact
The Department of Health has previously said that reducing salt intake by just 1g per day - a pinch of salt - would save 4,147 preventable deaths and £288m to the NHS every year.
A high salt diet has been linked to a number of other serious health conditions such as stomach cancer, osteoporosis and kidney disease.
